Professor shares insights about sustaining a 'life of the mind' through ALS battle

September 26, 2019 | UHCL Staff

When University of Houston-Clear Lake’s Associate Professor of History Dan Haworth went on leave this year, it wasn’t because he was ready to stop teaching and being a faculty member. Last year, he received a devastating diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, forcing him to rethink his priorities. Despite the challenges he faces, Haworth is nowhere near done teaching. He still has a great deal to share with students, faculty and staff and the community.

That’s why UH-Clear Lake’s College of Human Sciences and Humanities is presenting an event titled, “ALS and the Life of the Mind: A Conversation Between Two Historians.” Haworth will share insights about how his perspectives on life and history have changed since his diagnosis.  Associate Professor of History Adam Hodges, his close friend and colleague, will ask Haworth questions toward the exploration of this thematic agenda they designed together. The event will take place in the Forest Room of the UHCL Bayou Building on Thursday, Oct. 3, 1-3 p.m.

“We found out that Dan is being highlighted by the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which spotlights people with many different neuro-muscular illnesses,” said  Associate Professor of Humanities Shreerekha Subramanian, also chair of Haworth’s Department of Liberal Arts, who is the faculty behind this event, along with the collaboration of Professor of Psychology Robert Bartsch and the Center for Faculty Development as well as Dean Rick Short and the College of Human Sciences and Humanities.

“They are making a short documentary about his life and experiences with ALS, which will be featured at an MDA event this winter. We believe this will be a one-of-a-kind event that will be deeply moving for the university community and others,” Subramanian said.

She added that she hoped that faculty members will take seriously their role as lifelong learners and professors of knowledge. “For Dr. Haworth, this phase of living with an illness like ALS has forced him to turn his meditative historical gaze upon himself and he is, even in a period of tribulation, ready to impart knowledge of what it means to live with ALS,” she said. “For us in the audience, I hope we learn lifelong lessons that will be useful beyond the classroom; lessons that will aid us in comprehending mortality with a sense of courage and equanimity.”

Hodges said he and Haworth chose to do this event together because they’re closely connected, both professionally and as good friends. “Dan’s mind is as sharp as ever, and this is an opportunity for the UHCL community to really hear about ALS and to engage with it,” Hodges said. “As an intellectual person, it means he has something new to offer that he didn’t before. Dan is part of our community and he has something valuable to teach people. It goes without saying that ALS is hard, but as he lives with it, he has something more to share about the world and life.”

Rather than talk about the details of living with the disease, Hodges said, he and Haworth would focus on his change of perspective. “This is a conversation about how the world looks to him now.”

“I’d like to talk about the books I’ve read, the places I’ve traveled, and about the outpouring of love I have received,” said Haworth. “We threw ourselves into travel, visiting Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia and Barcelona, Spain. I’m a Latin American historian, so these are places I’ve always wanted to visit. This is part of my journey; going to all the places where I know the history, keep up with the current political situations and enjoy the soccer.”

Haworth said the main thing he would like to discuss in his “conversation” is the idea that education extends beyond the classroom, and is about connecting what we learn to the books we read, the films we see, the places we go, and the food we eat. “Travel now,” he said. “No one knows what will happen to any of us. We are living our lives on fast forward now. People make plans to do things ‘one day,’ but for us, that’s right now. We travel and we see that life is full of conversations.”

He said that when they were in Argentina, he saw an ongoing “conversation” taking place through street art about the meaning of Argentina’s past. “The average person would not recognize the terms of this conversation, through street art and graffiti, but I did. Link it to your own life,” he said. “Travel and reading is not about snapping photos and moving on. See the bigger picture. Understand that the way you vote in the U.S. is connected to how others live around the world, and to where you can travel. Being an informed person through the humanities relates to everything in our lives.”

Hodges and Haworth have started a historians’ book club, with just the two of them as members. “Their rules are, we can’t read anything in our specialty areas,” Haworth said. “We come together and explore areas of interest that we haven’t had time to do before.”

Haworth said he wants to share a historian’s view about popular culture, write op-eds about the crisis at the border, and how we need to understand what’s going on in the larger sense. “This is called, ‘The Life of the Mind,’” he said. “My body is failing, but my mind is not. You can choose the path you go on, once you get a diagnosis like ALS. I am not my diagnosis. I often say I want to live as well as I can for as long as I can. I’m writing, reading, traveling and always living a life of the mind.”

For more information, contact the Center for Faculty Development at facultydevelopment@uhcl.edu or Associate Professor of Humanities Shreerekha Subramanian at subramanian@uhcl.edu.