Elaine Kutner, the consultant who also helped run the College's forums on budget restructuring earlier this year, will advise the new long-range planning process that is set to begin in the fall.
Assistant to the President Diana Roose said the visit's purpose is to gather ideas about how the process should work. Her visit, on Tuesday and Wednesday, will include forums with students as well as with faculty and administrators. The forums with students will be from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. both nights. Tuesday's forum will be in Griswold Lounge in Stevenson Hall and Wednesday's will be in Wilder Hall.
The College's last long-range planning process, known as Strategic Issues Steering Committee or SISC, came up with nearly 100 specific recommmendation on the College's future. When a draft of SISC's report was released in the fall of 1993, it was met with widespread protest.
The report included suggestions to have more first-year only residence halls. Students were angry with that suggestion and others and with the way the committee operated.
When Nancy Dye took over as president, she announced a new planning process she dubbed SISC-lite. That report was never completed.
Dye has said a strategic planning process should have just a few broad philosophical recommendations. In the past, she has mentioned a commitment to being a residential college, to improving financial aid, faculty salaries and building a new natural science facility.
Wolff said that a job search has begun and that the first candidate will meet with students next month.
Jeremy Stoner and Morgan Matthews, the two tubists who organized the protest, said they wanted Wolff to retain Martin. Martin commutes once a week from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., to teach them. Sumner Erickson, a professor at Carnegie Mellon and performer in the Pittsburg Symphony, will be on-campus for an interview May 13.
"I think that we're going to like him," said Stoner. "He's one year younger than our teacher Rex, which is cool. It's nice to have a younger teacher … someone to relate to."
According to Stoner, Martin recommends Erickson for the position. Since the protest, Stoner said that many professors and students have asked him questions concerning Martin's situation and how the situation has been moving along. He said, "The faculty has more interest in it now than before the protest."
There are three tuba students in the Conservatory and one secondary student.
Stoner said, "[The protest] didn't do anything in the dean's office. [Wolff] had her mind set on not bringing Martin back here."
Stoner said that although Wolff asked Stoner and Matthews to stop playing their instruments after a couple hours, she told them that she did like the music they played.
This appointment means that Oberlin will have three faculty members specializing in Asian-American studies next year. A year ago, there were no professors at Oberlin who specialized in the field.
Besides Linda Trinh Vo, the new one-year leave replacement in sociology, Oberlin has hired Benson Tong, also as a one-year replacement instructor in history. Sylvia Watanabe has been appointed as a tenure-track member of the creative writing department.
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 124, Number 22; April 26, 1996
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