POET’S PAGE: Hardball In The House Of Learning

(Last Updated On: )

When those entrusted to guard an institution turn every disagreement into a battle, the question is no longer who wins, but what remains standing.

By Dr. J. Kerkula Foeday
My Weekly Poetic Reflection, Issue 23, Monday, August 12, 2026

There is a strange silence
In the House of Learning.
Not the silence of scholarship,
Not the quiet before a lecture,
Nor the thoughtful pause
Of a mind wrestling with truth.

This is another silence,
The silence of locked doors,
Of wounded pride,
Of letters unanswered,
Of voices standing apart
On opposite sides of an invisible wall.
And outside,
The drums of accusation beat.
Hardball.
In the House of Learning.

Where reason was supposed to mediate,
Power now negotiates with power.
Where dialogue should have built bridges,
Positions have become fortresses.
Where disagreement should have produced a table,
We have produced trenches.

Faculty stand.
Staff stand.
Administrators stand.
Students watch.
Adjuncts are drawn into the crossfire.
And the University,
The old House,
The fragile House,
The House built to teach Liberia how to think,
Stands between them.

Who wins when the University loses?
Who triumphs
when classrooms become collateral?
Who celebrates
when professors and administrators
Can no longer sit beneath the same roof
And speak without suspicion?

A vote may be counted.
A statement may be issued.
A meeting may be refused.
A hard line may hold.
But institutions
are not football matches.
They do not have winners
When the playing field itself is torn apart.
And Liberia watches.

For this is not merely a quarrel within a university.
It is a mirror.
A small republic inside the Republic.
A rehearsal of something more dangerous.
Here, we see what happens
When power mistakes firmness for wisdom,
When resistance mistakes endurance for victory,
When those who disagree
begin to see one another
Not as partners in an institution
But as enemies to be defeated.

And somewhere beyond
the university gates,
Another battle is being played.
A public official is removed.
A court speaks.
The law pronounces.
Yet the machinery of power hesitates before obedience.
And the nation watches the unsettling spectacle:
Can an institution command respect
If those with power can choose when to listen?

The question travels.
From the University
to the courthouse.
From the courthouse
to the Executive Mansion.
From the Executive Mansion to every classroom,
Every public office,
Every citizen who has ever been told:
Trust the institution.

But what happens
when the institution itself
Is taught to distrust the law?
What happens
when authority
Becomes allergic to accountability?
What happens
when every disagreement
Becomes a test of strength?
Then the Republic begins to learn the wrong lesson.
That power is stronger than process.
That persistence is better than compromise.
That humiliation is preferable to reconciliation.
That winning the argument
matters more
Than preserving
the institution
That made the argument possible.

And this is where the danger begins.
Because institutions rarely collapse
with the sound of thunder.
Sometimes, they erode quietly …
One ignored grievance,
One unanswered letter,
One broken promise,
One defiant posture,
One politicized appointment,
One contemptuous dismissal,
One court order left waiting,
One university left bleeding.
Brick by brick.
Trust by trust.
Until one morning,
We discover that the House
still has walls,
But no longer has a foundation
Strong enough
to carry the weight of the Republic.

Hardball in the House of Learning.
How strange.
The place where we teach
critical thinking
Has become a theater
Where compromise is treated as surrender.
The place where we teach
conflict resolution
Cannot resolve its own conflict.
The place where we teach
citizenship
Is teaching the nation what happens
When citizens
stop listening to one another.

And the students,
Those who came to inherit knowledge,
Are inheriting
the consequences.
They watch their teachers
fight for dignity.
They watch administrators
fight for authority.

They watch politicians
fight for control.
And somewhere in that watching,
A dangerous curriculum is being written:
Power does not have to listen.
Institutions do not have to bend.
The law can wait.
Dialogue is weakness.
Victory is everything.

No.
Let us stop.
Before the House becomes a battlefield
From which nobody can graduate.
Let us remember:
A university is larger than its president.
Larger than its faculty.
Larger than its staff.
Larger than its students.
Larger than any administration.
And the Republic is larger than every president
Who temporarily occupies its highest office.

Leadership passes.
Administrations pass.
Titles pass.
Names pass.
But institutions must endure.
Because when the temporary
is allowed to destroy
the permanent,
History does not record who shouted the loudest.
It records what was lost.
So let the House speak again.
Let the doors reopen.
Let reason return to the table.
Let grievance meet grievance
Without turning neighbor against neighbor.
Let authority remember
That legitimacy is not sustained
by stubbornness.
Let resistance remember
That institutions can be defended
without being destroyed.
Let the law speak and let power listen.
For Liberia has survived too many battles
To need another victory
that leaves nothing worth winning.

The question remains
Not who stood firm,
Not who blinked first,
Not who won the confrontation,
Not who defeated whom.
But this:
Who wins when institutions lose?
And if the answer is:
No one,
Then why are we still playing
hardball
In the House
of Learning?

About the Author

Dr. J. Kerkula Foeday is Chair of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology at the Amos C. Sawyer College of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Liberia. He is also the current president of the National Association of Social Workers of Liberia (NASOWL).

You Might Be Interested In