Trivius G. Caldwell
Live Everything!
Literature. Leadership.
Identity.
POWER.
I am Lieutenant Colonel Trivius Caldwell, a soldier, scholar, husband, father, and a friend to many. I believe that literature is the teacher of life and my experiences in combat and within academia share a similar trait of comfort in a state of ambiguity. The most important realization for me is the fact that any endeavor to create positive change requires an understanding and respect for diverse groups of people. Both leadership and literature demand the participation in a continual process of change—we must communicate, contemplate, and create.
There is transformative power in the acquisition of knowledge, and I believe that both the soldier and scholar embody the intellectual curiosity necessary to act. My goal is to identify the hybridity in aspects of leadership, literature, and life.
"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts."
-C.S. Lewis
UTTERANCE
Why Literature?
My literary experience began by reading hip-hop lyrics in grade school. Navigating the sublime quickly became possible by submitting to my imagination as I engaged in narrative and other genres of discourse. This ultimately introduced me to new spaces. I began to depend on prose to escape the perils of my troubled childhood and, later, the same imaginative endeavor would serve the same purpose in war. As I appropriate the experiences of those who have travelled diverse roads, I began to understand the power of literature.
IDENTITY
Who Am I?
Scholar, Soldier, Father, Husband, and Friend. I learned early to distinguish the many functions that circumscribe my life world. My undergraduate study at Tuskegee University enabled me to contemplate my existence in a complicatedly social world. Identity is a precious commodity, and educators and leaders alike have gained the permission of their admirers to influence them. We must cultivate the abilities of those who want to realize the power of self-consciousness, and I believe, the ability to exploit talents in the service of others will prove worthy in attempts to enact global growth and change.
POWER
Composition Pedagogy
Teaching composition and literature at the United States Military Academy at West Point required serious attention to the many variables that influence our world. This means that cadets may soon find themselves in small villages in parts of the world where literacy is all that binds cultures. Teaching cadets composition and literature mean producing global agents of social change and my experience there shaped my leader philosophy and curiosity as a scholar of literary studies.