This article appeared in yesterday’s Minnpost.com, “a thoughtful approach to news.” It is one of the nation’s most successful daily online news sources that was started by the former publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and is staffed by former senior “Stribe” journalists who either took buyouts or were laid off as the newspaper became a shell of it former self due to hedge funds failures and poor external management.
Monte Bute’s circuitous route to winning 2010 alumnus award from Metropolitan State University
By Casey Selix | Published Tue, Jul 6 2010 8:30 am
Monte Bute must be one of the most-unusual winners of Metropolitan State University’s annual alumnus award.
His teenage rebellion landed him in Red Wing’s reformatory school for boys. He dropped out of college in 1967 and dropped acid in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. He earned his peace stripes as an anti-war activist. He toiled for laborers as an organizer for Jobs Now! of Minnesota. He’s labored for the union representing faculty for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.
Bute, an associate professor of sociology at St. Paul-based Metro State, took not only the road less traveled but also the long and winding road to his bachelor’s degree. Even Metro State’s award bio notes that he became a “a social scientist by the seat of his pants.” Excerpts:
“Bute began teaching at Metropolitan State as a community faculty member in 1984. He finally finished a long-delayed B.A. at the university in 1991. After a 20-year career as a community organizer, he realized that his next mission in life was teaching. To fulfill that calling, Bute began graduate school rather late in life.”
The official bio also describes Bute as a “prolific writer” and “first and foremost, a master teacher.”
But Bute’s account of his life is far more entertaining. His 2004 speech, “The Making of a Backstage Sociologist,” travels to the far-out corners of his life and reminds us of Metro State’s experimental roots. He gave the speech upon winning the Distinguished Sociologist award from Sociologists of Minnesota. A few excerpts:
“To be honored with the Distinguished Sociologist award is alone enough to leave one somewhat tongue-tied. Further compounding this sense of being dumbstruck is the eerie coincidence that this year’s meeting of the Sociologists of Minnesota (SOM) is being held at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Red Wing.”
“I inhaled my sociological moxie the old-fashioned way — as a deviant, a dissident, and an organizer. I will probably never receive the American Sociological Association’s seal of approval.”
“Founded in 1971, Metropolitan State was an experimental college for adult learners. Finding myself at a school known for thumbing its nose at the academic establishment, I devised a course that was befitting — ‘Interpersonal and Social Power: A View From Below.’ While this was a pleasurable avocation, I kept my day job.”
The deviant, the dissident, the organizer and the sociologist come through vividly in his speech. Definitely worth reading. Too bad there isn’t video.
Update: No video link has shown up yet, but photos of Bute from the 1960s and later are on “The Monte Bute Fan Club” page on Facebook. Bute, who is undergoing chemotherapy for a rare form of lymphoma, says he still isn’t sure who among colleagues, friends and students set up the page. But he’s getting a kick out of it.
5 Comments:
Monte Bute embodies the passion, critical thinking and lifelong learning that Metropolitan State faculty seek to instill in all its graduates. Naming Monte as the 2010 recipient of the Alumnus of the Year is a tribute to the thousands of students who have graduated from the University and embody the traits of a well educated person. The award for Monte is also a tribute to the outstanding faculty in the Social Science department– Professors Nancy Black, Janet Enke, and Thomas O’Connell–who have not only tolerated this madcap academic, but also supported him and nurtured his students who do not always understand his passion for learning means that they will have to struggle with difficult materials and with critical self-examination of their own beliefs.
Everybody who has met Monte knows that he wears his passion for learning and teaching on his sleeve. If you are afraid about somebody bursting your balloon of hallowed beliefs, you might think it wise to avoid Bute and take an easier route. But you would be wrong because underneath his passion and strong beliefs is a gentle person who has learned that a life without pain is a life without learning. By struggling with and coming to terms with his own personal demons, Monte has served as a role model for countless students who came to Metro State doubting their ability to succeed in a rigorous academic environment. Like Monte, many of these thirty year olds started the journey earlier in their lives and had failed to achieve their goals. But Monte over the years has greeted thousands of new Metro students, young and old, at orientation meetings with an inspiring message: if a crazy guy like me can start late and succeed so can you.
Make no mistake, the Alumnus of the Year award is not a popularity contest. If that were the case, Bute would never receive the award. He has broken far too many eggs at Metro to make a seamless academic omelet. When I was the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, I could have earned my entire salary simply cleaning up the muddied waters Monte left behind in his drive to right wrongs and defend rights which were not universally perceived by others as rights and wrongs. Those stung by his barbs will probably question his selection as Alumnus of the Year, but even some of his harshest critics have to reluctantly concede that they too have occasionally benefitted from his willingness to attack pomposity and provide leadership at crucial moments in the life of Metro. Without his passionate leadership for a wide variety of causes, Metropolitan State would be a much different institution than it is today. And Monte’s selection as the Alumnus of Year is living proof that Metro State does indeed follow the beat of a different drummer.
This “madman’s” passion has many students soaring to reach intellectual heights they never dreamed possible. Not only does he continually hone his teaching style to engage and inspire students, but his contributions to Metropolitan State University over the years have been immeasurable in shaping the institution’s mission. As my colleague for the past 22 years, he has supplied endless material for social science courses. For example, when illustrating the term “socialization” to undergraduates, I often ask them to think of a professor in the Social Science Department who was “socialized by a pack of wolves.” They immediately understand the concept.
Working with, for and against Monte for the past two decades has never been dull, and I would not trade it for anything in the world. Thanks Monte.
Comments 1
John H Sims — March 7, 2011
I've just been gifted by the Star Tribune and Monte Bute through their collaboration in making his journey public on March 6, 2011. His journey into what I've been told is deep grace, enhanced my belief that we all have an unexplained spiritual guide within who instructs us. We are brothers in the realm of jumping into the abyss and finding the courage to return for judgment and the success that follows. He is indeed a life lesson to pay attention to. So Monte, if this reaches you, know that I'm hoping that the God of my understanding will find a way to put you in my presence if only for a moment before you travel into that unknown place called eternity that I came back from in 2008.