In last week's Review Dean Feinleib offered an explanation of the recent College Faculty Council's (CFC) decision to postpone the creation of the long-sought third permanent faculty position in Expository Writing (ExWr), which resulted in the loss of assistant ExWr professor Wendy Hesford: "The CFC...decided on procedural grounds...It is no reflection of the very high quality of Hesford's work." What then, does this decision reflect? Certainly not student input: a petition supporting Dr. Hesford's promotion signed by 225 students was given to Dean Feinleib before the CFC made their decision. EPPC, as well, had called an extra meeting for the purpose of deciding on the matter in time for Oberlin to make a counter-offer to Dr. Hesford, who will now leave to take a tenure-track position at the University of Indiana. However, the combination of student/faculty support was apparently not as influential as the ultimate necessity to follow established policy.
This "procedural" validation of CFC's decision is simply described: CFC cannot create a tenure-track position until EPPC has ranked this year's proposals for the creation/upgrade of positions, a process which occurs each April. This explanation is decontextualized, misleading and incomplete, misconstruing the role of procedure in personnel decisions and ignoring the developments which created the need for CFC to sit in judgment concerning Hesford's (and ExWr's) future at all.
The third tenure-track position in ExWr has been consistently requested by ExWr faculty and students; petitions marshaling student support for Dr. Hesford have been a popular springtime activity for three consecutive years. According to the "up or out" policy instituted by the American Assoc. of University Professors, faculty members can only remain in temporary positions for seven years; the College's series of postponements through Hesford's sixth-year established the trajectory of events which foreseeably culminated in the loss of this valuable professor. The image of reluctant and regretful decision-making bodies tragically (or prudently) caught up or hindered by their own (apparently inflexible) procedures is effacing and evasive.
The group of students which initially formed in support of Wendy Hesford sees the commitment to a third position in ExWr as one important campaign in a set of broader issues surrounding Oberlin's inability/unwillingness to create a climate conducive to retaining progressive untenured female faculty. Wendy Hesford's departure appears to fit into a disturbing pattern of recent faculty departures which include Hai-Ping Yan, Leela Fernandes and Kristine Burns, to name a few. Any list is tentative and problematic; we are not suggesting that this pattern is the result of the willed intent of powerful forces but rather a complex reflection of structural obstacles and ambiguous priorities which demands further inspection. We are concerned about the apparent disparity between Oberlin's rhetorical commitment to progressive education and its institutional commitment to both the professors and students who embody that education.
The fate of the third position in ExWr is currently suspended until the CFC makes (yet another) decision on the matter in April. The successful operation of ExWr would be severely jeopardized by the permanent reduction of its full-time staff by one-third. ExWr serves and helps maintain a diverse population at Oberlin. The last program review revealed that (controlling all other variables), within the constituencies targeted by ExWr, students who take ExWr classes are more likely to remain at Oberlin through graduation than those who do not. We call on Oberlin students concerned with these issues to support the long-overdue creation of the third permanent ExWr position by writing to Dean Feinleib and Associate Dean Lasser.
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 124, Number 17; March 8, 1996
Contact Review webmaster with suggestions or comments at ocreview@www.oberlin.edu.
Contact Review editorial staff at oreview@oberlin.edu.