Senate wants say in hiring

Acting Dean visits with Student Senate

The Student Senate's main topic of discussion was Oberlin's faculty appointment procedures during last Sunday's meeting.

Acting Dean of College and Chair of Classics Jim Helm and Chair of the Dean Search Committee and Professor of History Marcia Colish were present at the meeting.

Senators spoke with Helm about Oberlin's policy for appointing its faculty because they were concerned students were not being listened to by decision makers. Senator sophomore Andreas Pape brought to Helm's attention the case concerning former Professor of Expository Writing Wendy Hesford's resignation earlier this semester as an example of why Senate is concerned about the process of faculty appointments.

Helm responded, "You're talking about things that are confidential and before I was part of it...I'm not sure what events transpired that led to her resignation." He added that Hesford's case was complicated.

In reference to Hesford's case, Cole said, "In making position allocations, if you have a good person in a temporary position, why isn't it appropriate to try harder to get them into a tenure track position?"

Senior senator Noah Bopp said, "Don't sacrifice good teachers at alter of administrative bureaucracy."

Senator sophomore Dan Persky asked Helm how he saw more student input in faculty searches and tenure decisions. Helm said, "The college requires student input."

In reference to the faculty appointing process, Senator Matthew Cole, a college senior, said, "Often when these student inputs occur, the final three selections have already been made." Helm commented, "There have been problems with confidentiality in the past."

Senior senator Chapin Beninghoff said, "I appreciate the faculty's discomfort over issues of confidentiality, but I would like them to appreciate my discomfort over paying a thousand dollars a week for an education that I have precious little power over."

Beninghoff also said, "We are the employers to a certain extent...we should have input." Helm responded, "There's a sense that students are employers, but they are also products." "We students are both producer and product. The entire mechanism of the college exists only as a facilitating agent for our own self-directed growth," Beninghoff said.

Helm said, "There was no problem there that a million and a half dollars couldn't solve."

During Helm's overview of the process for appointing for faculty, he explained, "Before an appointment, there must be a position." Helm said the position is available for an appointment when one falls vacant or when there is enough money to create a new one. There are two kinds of positions: continuing (tenure) and non-continuing, said Helm.

The next topic at the meeting concerned the upcoming election for