Off the Cuff: Robert Piron
By Oriana Syed

Robert Piron is a professor of economics and has been a member of the Oberlin faculty for 41 years. He graciously shared his personal opinions with the Review on the College’s financial difficulties as well as where he feels our real weaknesses lie.

What do you think about Oberlin’s current budget situation?

I do not think it is serious. But it does need to be addressed. I do not feel it is serious enough to merit layoffs. Although those layoffs will save money, I do not feel that a quarter million or 300,000 dollars is worth the total disruption of 11 lives, or however many people end up getting laid off or rotated to jobs they really don’t want.
The budget is no doubt a problem. The question is how serious of a problem. Serious enough to lay people off? I believe it is not.
We don’t plan well here. If things are going well, we feel they will go that way forever. When things are going badly we think they will go that way forever. The College did not exhaust all of its options before it resorted to layoffs.

What other options do you feel we had?

We have many liquid assets that we could sell. For example we could deaccess some paintings in the Art Museum. This is a common practice and the funds are generally used to buy other paintings. Here our choice is between a painting and a person’s job. When times are good, we can always buy the painting back. The College has categorically come down in favor of paintings. I understand the position but disagree with it vigorously.
It’s a question of values. We came out on the short side of that, I think.
I also believe that the faculty would be willing to go without a merit pay raise as opposed to laying people off. I’d personally opt for just a cost of living raise for a year or two. The College opted for downsizing.
Next to losing a loved one, a job is the worst thing to lose. You lose your health care, the non-vested part of your pension, your self-esteem. It causes psychological stress. I thought we were a more humane community, but the applause at last Tuesday’s faculty meeting when downsizing was rationalized by President Dye was, in my view, in very poor taste and really quite insensitive.

Do you feel money would solve all of the College’s current difficulties?

Can you think of any that it wouldn’t? If we get the big bucks, we could solve the big problems. Cutting from the budget and laying off workers is easy, fundraising is difficult. We need to get much better at it, and fast.

How do you feel about President Dye’s pay raise?

I think her pay raise was absurd. And her deferred compensation was based on no performance criteria. I wish she had turned it down, but I can’t tell the President what to do with her money.

Compared to other schools, how do you feel the College performs?

I just don’t like not being in the top ten. Being ranked so low gives me a strange and uncomfortable feeling. And the lack of recognition of the problem by the administration bothers me.
As I have mentioned elsewhere schools, like Swarthmore, Williams, and Amherst have the same problems that we do, yet have remained in the top ten year after year. Are they so much smarter than we are?
I do believe that academically we have gotten softer. It is easy to lose your reputation and much harder to get it back. We are not doing all that we can to encourage traditional scholarship.

Where do you see Oberlin going?

Straight down. I see nothing happening to turn us around with the values we have now.
In the eighties we were ranked number three or four in the top five schools, but have fallen to number 23/24. The administration refuses to believe that people may have a point in putting us in number 23/24. We don’t seem to think the rankings matter. What passes for self-evaluation here is, in my view, a kind of narcissistic delusion of grandeur, and since we seem to not care what others think (the rankings), stubbornly provincial as well. Moving us up the rankings is the job of the administration. I go into class and I teach the toughest, best class that I can. That’s not to say that the administration is to blame for where we are, but they do have the responsibility to improve our academic excellence. If they can’t figure out how to do it in a reasonable time, they should move on.

Why are you still here?

The teaching is fabulous. Oberlin is a wonderful town to live in. The College has allowed me to do the things I’d like to do, such as varsity coaching and running a tennis camp for 28 years. It has been generous in letting me leave to spend time on other campuses doing research. It’s been good to me. It’s still a great place. Unfortunately, it was much greater, and not that long ago.

Interview conducted by News Editor Rachel Decker.