In part 1 we learned that a “gatekeeper” could be
an adult adviser to a youth club and that the gatekeeper’s personal
limitations, caused by her / himself or by others, could harm youth.
Such harm would come mostly through missed opportunities for
education, skills demonstration or recognition. In
parts 2 and 3 we looked at examples of missed opportunities in Montebello.
Unfortunately, the problem pervades our society.
Have you ever applied for a grant?
A grant making foundation’s ability to help the community is only
as good as its staff’s knowledge, experience, and creativity.
In other words, you could put a stunning innovation into a grant
proposal, only to be stunned by the rejection by the foundation.
Foundation staff have limitations, and those limitations affect who
gets a grant, and that in turn affects the quality of life in a community.
University professors are paid well, but from a
community’s perspective, are generally unhelpful gatekeepers.
I had a conversation in May, 2006, with the service-learning
scholar-elect of the California State University, at which time he told me
that part of his job was to educate professors about service-learning, that
is, community service tied to coursework, in the hope that more of them
participate. Why would
professors ignore service-learning? Because
nobody ever planted a strong community spirit in them—just as nobody is
doing so in our youth today—and nobody is requiring that they become
involved with the community. We
could consider universities a major underutilized resource at a time when we
need to tap the potential of all resources.
Here is a gatekeeper problem with which we are
painfully familiar: managers
filtering information from staff. An example: FBI
management’s mishandling of reports from agents with regard to suspicious
activities in the United States prior to September 11, 2001.
If we were to think that the creation of the Department of Homeland
Security would have eliminated this problem, we would be putting our
communities, families, and ourselves at risk.
Last week, I commuinicated with Pi Sigma Delta, the
national political-science fraternity, because there was an idea, on my
computer, for citizen-centered, nonlegislative campaign reform which might
have a large, positive effect on our democracy.
The newsletter editor of Pi Sigma Delta, a professor at North
Carolina State University, said that there was no room in the fall
newsletter and that the fraternity did not do e-mail blasts.
So, potentially far-reaching ideas can be quashed by perfunctory
policies.
Have you thought of the Federal Communications
Commission (“FCC”) as a gatekeeper?
When we have a complaint about a telephone company, we might contact
the FCC. The FCC decides
whether to pursue our complaint. What
is of concern to me—and, hopefully, to you—is that a thousand people
might have similar complaints, but none of them would know of each other’s
complaint, because the FCC does not enable the public to organize and pursue
a solution.
Back to Montebello.
Soon there is to be an event. The
organizer, at his expense, invited different organizations to be admitted
for free to the event in order to meet people and raise money for
themselves. The invitation was
by e-mail and was ignored by the president of one organization.
But because I sent the invitation to somebody whom I knew in the
organization, the other officers found out and wanted to participate.
How many times, whether we know it or not, are we stopped by a
gatekeeper, when the people on the other side of the gate want what we
offer?
I think that we have a good idea of the problem posed
by gatekeepers. Is there
anything which we can do about the problem?
September 13, 2007