Project Three: James and Julius
The Last Bastion Julius Whittier James
Rodgers The Next Bastion
Julius Whittier and James Rodgers have two main characteristics in common; leadership and the fact that they attended the University of Texas. Besides that, the two men have nothing, completely nothing in common. The Second Life Experience has changed this commonality. “No creature can fly with just one wing. Gifted leadership occurs where heart and head-feeling and thought meet. These are just the two wings that allow a leader to soar. All leaders need enough intellect to grasp the specifics of the tasks and challenges at hand. Of course, leaders gifted in the decisive clarity that analytical and conceptual thinking allow certainly add value. We see intellect and clear thinking largely as the characteristics that get someone in the leadership door. Without those fundamental abilities, no entry is allowed. However, intellect alone will not make a leader; leaders execute a vision by motivating, guiding, inspiring, listening, persuading-and most crucially, through creating resonance. As Albert Einstein cautioned, [We should take care not to make the intellect our god. It has, of course powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve.]”[1]
Julius Whittier was “raised in San Antonio, a very pastoral, slow-paced, and southern city.”[2] His mother, Loraine, was a schoolteacher and community activist who had led protests against a local grocery chain that prohibited black women from becoming cashiers. Whittier said his “Uncle Edward Sprott was head of the N.A.A.C.P. in Beaumont, Tex., and had not been intimidated when his house was bombed. His older brother, named Oncy, had his head cracked open by police officers for his involvement in a guerrilla theater troupe that performed pointed skits about prejudice in the streets of San Antonio.” [3]James Rodgers was raised in fast-paced Killeen, a small microcosm model of the population make up of the United States; mainly white, mediocre amount of Asians and Blacks, and a mixture of different races. James Rodgers was able to relive Julius Whittier’s life in a digital world called Second Life. The Second Life digital world is exciting, fun, and the new age of our digitalized world. The fact that the Second Life program is being used in this course shows the change in modern education with advances in technology. In this world we are suppose to reflect the character of our role model. Julius Whittier, or in Second Life Julius Boozehound, was the role model that reflected Julius’ character to the other role models on “UT Island” throughout the conversations between the students. The first time the entire class was allowed to play with their avatars on “UT Island”; many students were uncomfortable with the digital world and had trouble having fun and completing the assignment. Flying around the UT tower, learning how to get across an almost impenetrable wall, and finding out that the avatars can talk to other avatars was a shaky beginning experience in Second Life.
The first chat
session asked, “What is a leader?” a simple question but with a plethora of
answers. Trying to answer just like any other football player would,
with every reference to football, was not the goal of the conversations. “Julius
Boozehound: On and off the football field I try my best to be the best I can
be. That is a leader to me.”[4] Much of Julius’ leadership qualities
are based on the significance that he played football, and retained the lessons
he learned on and off the field. Whittier said he turned two personal flaws into powerful tools of
perseverance. He was not only confident to the point of cockiness, but also had
a gift for oratory that continues to serve him well as a trial lawyer. "I
had a mouth that I ran a lot and coherently,"[5]
Julius said. "It sounded like I knew what I was saying, and that protected
me."[6]
I used this quality of Julius in my Second Life chat experience to portray his
true personality.
These are pictures of James Rodgers actually working the
Second Life program.
“As we have no immediate experience of what
other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected,
but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Though
our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our
senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did and never can
carry beyond our persons, and it is by the imagination we place ourselves in
his situation. Moral judgment thus involves sympathetic participation with
those, other than the agent himself, who would be affected by the external
consequences, good or bad, of an act. Dugald Stewart suggested that “the
apparent coldness and selfishness of mankind may be traced, in great measure,
to a want of attention and a want of imagination. Thus it has been suggested
that the sympathetic imagination in literature and morality are psychologically
dependent on each other, that they augment each other’s growth and delicacy,
and the decline in one necessarily precipitates decline in the other. In any
case, whether it comprises the fundamental impulse of morality or not, and in
however varying a degree it may exist among individuals, it has been suggested
that there is a natural and instinctive sympathy for one’s fellow man; that we
sympathize with what we see rather than what we hear intellectually delineated;
and that, because of its primary importance in the constitution of man,
identification by sympathy, which is achieved through the imagination, characterizes
the highest moral and aesthetic exertion.”[7]
Julius has always been a leader on his football team and incorporating
the football team into this discussion was a necessary point. The idea of team
has been implanted in Julius’ mind and has been a contributing factor to his
success because he works for the whole team and does not just worry about
himself. This chat session was mundane
because the prompt question was very basic, but opened the conversation up to everyone.
The Second Life program is confusing and the technology affected the outcome of
the overall discussion.
Self motivation is a quality that Julius has
harnessed and able to control to complete success. Everyone always takes a
special adherence to what their coaches have told them, and Julius looked up to
Coach Royal because of Royals position. Julius said that his decision to attend
the University of Texas was best capsulated by a quote from Coach Royal. “Luck is the meeting of opportunity and
preparation.” [8]Take a
moment to look at this quote and spend some time pondering it. Julius reverence
to this quote become a sign of dignity, the quote happens to be true. Think of
all the instances where you feel on top of the world. The feeling when scoring
a goal in soccer, when graduating from high school, and being privileged enough
to speak in front of your entire class at that graduation. What better
explanation of luck is there besides opportunity and preparation? Julius
is one of the only role models that have direct interaction with diversity
during a time in America when racism was a social norm. I felt that portraying
Julius Whittier in a positive and accurate manner was absolutely necessary.
Julius never had a moment in life when he was nervous to say what was on his
mind or what was bothering him. In this Second Life chat session Julius spoke
his mind and accordingly so. “Julius: That shows that humans are
naturally not used to diversity. What ways can leaders connect diversity to
others? We must seek the truth and stop relying on others to hand us the
answers and negative leaders can no longer prosper. I don't believe leaders are the problem however; it is simply the
fact that we are all human. Leaders must be willing to accept anything. They must
rise to any occasion. Coach Joe Vita: humans are selfish and seek
self-indulgences.”[9]
I feel that most of my life I have just been going through the motions.
That life is not dull but that I am not doing anything profound. I want to
become a role model like Julius Whittier; he has grown into a respectable man
with a respectable job and has already completed something profound. I know
that I am still in college and still so young but I feel that I need to do something
profound with my life. I took a stand point from Julius’ opinions to
build the foundation of this argument. "I don't think that entitles me to
any greatness," Whittier said. "I did what I did based on what I
thought was right and good for me. I knew there were a lot of people watching,
and that it was important that I make it.”[10] Julius
said that he did not believe he deserved to be in the record books because he
does not feel that he did anything great, he just did what he thought was
right. Julius is one of the only role models that have
direct interaction with diversity during a time in America when racism was a
social norm. I felt that I portrayed Julius Whittier in a positive and accurate
manner. Julius never had a moment in life when he was nervous to say what was
on his mind or what was bothering him. In this Second Life chat session Julius
spoke his mind and accordingly so.
These are two pictures taken during the interaction between
avatars at the Second Life UT Island.
Overall the Second Life experience was
rewarding and interesting. To able to be a part of an academic study marks an
impression in my mind that this experience will always be important, not just
to me but to future students who might study our experience. The idea of Second
Life was an obstacle at first, but the program allows students not to feel
pressured because the digital world opens up more doors for opportunity and
creativity. The Second Life experience has reminded me of the left brain
activity. The imagination of Second Life and being able to accurately depict
your role model you must have an imagination. The chat sessions were suppose to
be our role models talking to each other and treating other students responses
with personal views was hard to not contribute.
When the conversations became heated over the topic of diversity,
personal views were expressed. These personal views should not have been taken
into consideration to our conversations because it took away from the true conversation.
The validity of this project was based on the imaginations of the students and
being able to contribute effectively in a conversation. “The
University holds no one’s hand. If you are not an aggressive self-starter, you
are not cut out for Texas.”[11]
This quote from Julius Whittier is a true statement, and I apply this quote to
my daily life and my Second Life.
“Thus you
can throw yourself flat on the ground, stretched out upon Mother Earth, with
the certain conviction that you are one with her and her with you. You are as firmly
established, as invulnerable as she, indeed a thousand times firmer and more
invulnerable. As surely, as she will engulf you tomorrow, so surely will she
bring you forth anew to new striving and suffering? And not merely “some day”: now, today, every day she is
bringing you forth, not once but thousands upon thousands of times, just as
every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there
is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no
end.”[12]This
quote reminds me of Waller Creek experience, and how so special nature is in
connecting yourself into your life. This course has one meaning and one meaning
only to “Explore U.T.” I regretfully say I have struggled through this course
but it has unified me through my experience here at UT. It reminds me that
earning my degree will not be easy and it will be a struggle. I have to work
really hard for four years and I will be set for the rest of my life. Julius Whittier has shown me the strengths of
a human being and that anything you put your mind to you can accomplish. “His openness and his confidence
in his staff and his program won me over as a friend and an admirer from that
day on.”[13]
Julius Whittier looked up to Coach Royal and took the power from his presence
to become the person he is today. Julius had no readings that have attributed
to his leadership vision but Coach Royal has been part of his success. I see my
leadership vision in Julius Whittier because of the choices he has made in life
and also the leaders that have molded him to what he is today. I see many of
the leadership roles, he has taken in the wake of racism is something profound
that I wish to accomplish in my life. I don’t want to go through my life
without completing a task of profoundness. Athletics has always been a means of
leadership in my life with much of my character being formed throughout my
athletic career. I like to attribute my success, to long football two-a-days,
soccer practice until seven, and tennis practice until my arms hurt. The days
sweating in the heat, with my lips parched, digging down inside myself and
saying just hang on. The ride of life is a roller coaster and you have to hang
on. “Just because someone shows leadership or someone takes action it does not
constitute a sound relationship to diversity. There is a connection. Leadership
expresses the qualities you have to rise, to take action, and to pursue a
higher purpose. Diversity relates with that because those that do are the individuals.
The diverse one. The people who do not try to be like the crowd of people they
see.” [14]
“Though my
senses were sinking into oblivion, they seemed to expand ere they reached it. They
perceived the magic song of the nightingales, and the odor of invisible hay,
and stars piercing the fading sky. The man whose beer I had stolen lowered me
down gently to sleep off its effects, and. As he did so, I saw that he was my
brother.”[15] I see Julius not only as
a leader but as a human being that has made it through life having a positive
impact on others. The goal of my life and my experience here at the University
of Texas is not only to make it, earn a degree, but to positively impact the
lives of others.
Good
video Clip: http://rpongett.phpwebhosting.com/tx-ou.html
Blog
site: http://exploringut.blogspot.com/
Word Count: 2,566