chronicle

[Dean Worth]

Dear Colleagues,
        I am struck by the alacrity with which so many colleagues have jumped all
over David Maxwell without thinking (or at least writing) very much about
what might have motivated him. A few things occur to me (I confess to
having had a brief but friendly aquaintance with him back in his Tufts days.)
        First, it isn't just a little college in Iowa that's trying to save money
where it can. I had the great good fortune to get a job at UCLA when I
finished Harvard and to help create what was generally recognized as one of
the country's best. For years now, all we hear from our Administration is
the need to increase undergraduate enrollments, while out enrollments are,
like most places', down, and so is the quality of the program and the
psyches of the faculty, not to mention the students.  David Maxwell may be
caught between a rock and a hard place, and he probably has fewer options
at Drake than we have at UCLA.
        Second, maybe Drake has been paying professorial salaries (probably not
very good ones) to people who are neither very good scholars nor very good
teachers. When enrollments drop, what is he supposed to do? UCLA can handle
its downsizing by waiting for attrition to take its course, but Drake may
not have that option.
        This is of course mostly a question of money. Harvard has few such
problems, but several of its Slavic Dept. faculty hold endowed chairs. In
other words, they can afford the "every tub on its own bottom" philosophy,
but only because most of their tubs are full of, well, lard. I was also
lucky enough to attend a well-endowed prep school, where language courses
consisted of a native teacher and perhaps eight kids seated around an oval
table. A cocker spaniel could learn a language in that environment.
        So my plea --and this comes from someone who is not a great fan of college
administrations generally-- would be to find out more of the facts before
castigating David Maxwell, who is, after all --albeit a bit distantly now--
also one of our colleagues.
                                                        Dean Worth



At 05:46 AM 3/7/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear colleagues:
>
>I hope everyone has seen the article on Drake University in the Chronicle of
>Higher Education where the new President, David Maxwell, former Russian
>professor (!) at Tufts and former Director of the NFLC (!!), has decided to
>close all the language departments at his institution because they are so
>ineffective at teaching language.
>
>Tol'ko etogo ne khvatalo!
>
>Michael Katz
>Middlebury College
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                http://members.home.net/lists/seelangs/
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                http://members.home.net/lists/seelangs/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------