Dean of College Mary Ella Feinleib resigns

Mary Ella Feinleib stepped down as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences March 22, after just seven months as the second-ranking academic officer at Oberlin.

Feinleib, who was hired last April, took office in July. She said she was never comfortable with making major budget decisions before she got to know Oberlin. That discomfort and a larger than anticipated workload are reasons Feinleib gave for resigning.

Before coming to Oberlin, Feinleib had been a dean at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., and before that she was a biology professor at the Tufts. She was the first dean of the college at Oberlin in years who was not selected from within Oberlin's faculty.

A new search is on for Feinleib's replacement. The search committee, chaired by Professor of History Marcia Colish, is considering both national and local candidates and plans to have a new dean in place for the 1997-98 academic year.

Mary Ella Feinleib: (photo by Jeff Glickman)

The current search is the third dean search since 1992. In 1992, a committee looked for a replacement for then-dean of the College Alfred MacKay. But MacKay agreed to stay on another two years after President S. Frederick Starr resigned. Last year, there was the search that netted Feinleib.

One problem with that search, Colish said, is that it didn't specifically encourage Oberlin faculty to apply. In the current search, local faculty are being sought out.

Since Feinleib's resignation, which went into effect at the beginning of spring break, Professor of Classics James Helm has been acting dean. Next year, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics Samuel Goldberg will fill in as the search continues.

The search committee is pressing for a Sept. 15 application deadline and hopes to have forums for finalists on campus in December. The committee is fine-tuning a job description for the dean. The position has changed drastically since President Nancy Dye took office in July 1994.

The job of Oberlin's academic deans - both in the college and in the Conservatory - has been expanded since last year because the provost position was eliminated. The provost's non-budget-related tasks have been reassigned to the academic deans. The two deans now oversee computing and the libraries as well as their traditional tasks of acting as an administrator for faculty members. In addition, the dean of the college is now responsible for the Allen Memorial Art Museum.

"I know that President Dye's vision and my original vision is that this could be done, and under ordinary circumstances, this could be viewed as an ordinary workload. That was complicated by the fact that I was new to Oberlin," Feinleib said.

But there were some extraordinary circumstances. One was that in her first semester, Feinleib was given the responsibility of trimming more that $300,000 from the college budget as part of Oberlin's budget restructuring.

"I was uncomfortable here coming in and making such decisions before I understood who did what and how various structures operate," she said.

Her decision to step down, Feinleib said, was not a result of a health problem as some people had speculated.

"I have had cancer," she said. "Now, I've just celebrated my 10-year anniversary [of beating cancer]. The fact is that I'm in excellent health. The only problem is sleep deprivation. I'm tired."

Feinleib said she made the decision to leave Oberlin completely on her own, though she consulted with the President on the timing of the resignation.

Feinleib had been thinking about resigning for several weeks and originally intended to stay through the current academic year at Oberlin, but said that she resigned effective at the start of Spring Break in order to let the college move ahead with a search for a new dean.

"The quick part wasn't what I had originally hoped. I feel that I owe a lot of people obligations that I haven't completed," she said. "It would have been nice from my point of view to honor those obligations. I understand the reasons for me to submit my resignation with that timing." Feinleib also said it was especially difficult for a newcomer to adopt as much responsibility as she was given. "I devoted a lot of time - and that was my plan - to getting to know Oberlin in my first semester. There were a lot of urgent and confidential crises. They're part of the dean's job, but there were quite a few of them per square millimeter," she said.

Faculty members said both before and after her resignation that Feinleib was not very visible in the community.

Though she decided the job was too much for her, Feinleib believes it's possible for an outsider to do the job.

"A dean from the outside has the possibility of bringing in a fresh perspective," she said. "Coming in new to a place that is as unique as Oberlin is a challenge.

"Obviously someone who comes from within has a thorough familiarity with the culture."

Classics Professor James Helm will serve as interim dean. The faculty is currently electing a search committee for the next permanent dean. That committee will determine whether the search will be national in scope or open only to current Oberlin staff members.

Besides work on the budget, one of Feinleib's biggest tasks was trying to smooth out the Oberlin governance process, something she said she worked on with the College Faculty Council.

Feinleib said that in addition to not being able to fulfill the obligations she made, one of her biggest regrets was not getting to know students better. "I think Oberlin's got the most intellectual, lively, argumentative students I've ever seen," she said. "I wanted to have a student-friendly office."

Feinleib said she does not know exactly what she'll do when she leaves Oberlin, but she plans to research some issues in higher education such as faculty development and mentorship and incorporating research into undergraduate programs.

Feinleib said that even though her stay was short, she came to like Oberlin. "I care about Oberlin. That may sound strange from someone who's leaving," she said. "I came here in the first place because I thought Oberlin was an extraordinary place. I wish Oberlin well and I wish myself well."

Feinleib also said she supports Dye's goals of using financial aid improvements to increase diversity and increasing faculty salaries to attract and retain top-notch faculty.