With a world of literary devices at their fingertips, two world-renowned poets chose to describe the moment the idea came to them the same way - like a light bulb.
Over the winter Pamela Alexander and Martha Collins, both Boston-based poets and teachers, talked about the position they were both finalists for in the Creative Writing Program at Oberlin and wished they had more time to spend writing.
"I think it was Martha who said it," Alexander said. "She said, `It's too bad we can't both have the job.'" Collins and Alexander said at that moment they looked at each other and a light bulb turned on.
Collins and Alexander's idea to share the tenure track position in Creative Writing eventually led to the search committee's decision to recommend the college hire the two candidates. Both women will share the position, Collins as a professor and director of the Program and Alexander as an associate professor.
Each woman will receive 5/9 of a full salary, and work a little more than part-time. Next year, as they become aquainted with Oberlin, both will work both semesters, but in years after they will teach in alternating semesters. Next year they are teaching two courses one semester, and one course during the other.
"We're getting more for our money to put it a crude way," Stuart Friebert, director of the Program said. Friebert, who is retiring at the end of this semester, is clearly pleased with the arrangement.
One major reason Friebert, Collins and Alexander like the arrangement is the time the poets will have to devote to writing. "We believe that teachers in the arts should really be doing the arts as well," Friebert said.
The idea came as a surprise to members of the search committee when Collins, who was the top candidate, proposed it. "We were surprised and at first we weren't quite sure how serious she was," Karen Cross, one of the student reps on the committee, said.
Collins said when she first mentioned the idea to Friebert he said, joking, "`Well, we have hired couples before.'" But after Collins and Alexander explained they were in fact serious, the Program and Clayton Koppes, dean of the college of Arts and Sciences, tried to accommodate the idea.
"The dean has done wonderful things on our behalf," Friebert said. He said he was surprised that the college was enthusiastic about the set-up. "It would have been a chance to save a little money," he said.
Koppes is happy about the appointment because Collins and Alexander are such well-known, highly regarded and experienced writers.
Collins is from the University of Massachusetts in Boston where she started the Creative Writing Program there in 1979. She has been a respected poet for years, and has been women, and having three women teaching, Collins, Alexander and Sylvia Watanabe, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, would be appropriate.
"Their joining the faculty is also particularly important because hiring women, and especially senior women, is an institutional priority," Koppes said.
Cross, who is graduating in the major this year, said she also thinks having more faculty will add depth in terms of writing style. She said it will help majors to have a wider variety of writers to talk to. "We're assuming it will be better," she said.
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