Today the Board at St. Norbert College wrote to deny all applications for tenure and promotion. 4 of the 5 faculty still up for tenure were in the humanities, and 2 of the 5 were in my discipline of English, which means humanities has now lost 18 positions, and English has gone from 8 faculty to 3.
As reason for these decisions, the letters from the Board cite the college's financial position and the new president's call to activate retrenchment. They are also de facto curricular decisions, which will shape what one of the few remaining residential SLACs in Wisconsin can offer its students.
This is a sample of some of the courses taught by faculty whose positions were eliminated this year. This amounts effectually to a revision of our curriculum, with only 3 of the 26 positions lost coming from disciplines identified by the faculty curriculum committee as suited to reduced support.
I'm so angry I hardly know what to do with myself: angry for my colleagues, who moved their lives here and invested years of work in developing these courses and programs, and angry for our students, who in many cases will never even know what leadership decided they didn't need to learn.
fucking gutting, for those who got effectively pink-slipped, for you few who remain, for the students, for everyone. WI's SLACs (and the regional UW campuses) are absolutely key local magnets throughout the state and I have no adequate words for how horrible their destruction is.
Truly gutting. I was among the pretenure faculty laid off in March, and the losses for my own career would be a lot to absorb, of course, but to see the effects on my colleagues, our current students, and the future students of Wisconsin is staggering. The programs we had here were absolutely vital.
oh no. I'm so sorry--the narrow end of the wedge having to watch the aftermath...truly awful. And yeah, absolutely vital programs, and unlikely to be replaced. I cannot be more sad and angry than you are I know, but solidarity in the communal pain.
I am so sorry. There are so many layers to how awful this is. From the very personal losses y'all are experiencing, to what this tells us about how university admins are reading the future. So grim. 😢
The point of a degree is to learn *how* to think.
Corporate jobs aren't hard. Marketing? HR? You could train a chimp to do them in half an hour.
Specialties like medicine or engineering, of course, need more study. But most corporate jobs could be done better by a poet than a business major.
There’s not a thing on that list that the world needs less education on. I’m so sorry, that has to be an overwhelming flood of difficult emotions right now for everyone affected.
So, so sorry to see this Lauren. I remember the Centenary College example from a couple of years back that resulted in a great voice in my field losing his *tenured* position, and wondered how much longer it'd be before SLAC admins went hard on retrenchment.
Thank you, Brice, and yes: I fear the loss of tenured positions is what's coming next for SNC as well. By my count there are now only about 10 junior faculty remaining at the college, so tenured faculty will have to be the next stage. It's staggering to see how quickly it's happened.
That move is reputation damaging in the extreme. Decades ago, while I was provost somewhere, the acting president was eager to show his tough he was. He ordered me to deny tenure to ALL faculty who were up. I knew the long-term damage that would cause to the university so I ignored his order.
The residential college contraction is coming on fast. We expect news on our own campus any day. (Meanwhile, our small faculty were awarded DoE and NEH grants last year, the first year we asked a grant company to help us. Says something about the nascent quality of our ideas!)
Norbert's current President is Laurie Joyner. Joyner was Wittenberg's President for several years and I knew her well, worked with her on faculty governance. She made disastrous decisions for us, decisions which resonate ten years later.
A colleague who left Witt several years ago told a friend:
It is so deeply unfortunate to see that careers can be made out of being willing to be the unpopular face for top-down curricular overhauls that, as you say, have little to no proven track record in reversing "enrollment challenges." I'm very sorry that's an experience we now share.
I'm feeling really staggered, Rose. The loss to the community is so extensive on so many levels - and so fast. I know you are familiar with many of the feelings.
This scale!! It's truly staggering. For you and all of your colleagues who have been let go, unceremoniously, and in these cases at the very, very last minute: I'm so sorry. So much loss, so much waste. None of this is a reflection on any of you. But gosh: what devastation and so many feelings.
Lauren, this is shocking, even after all the other events leading up to this. I didn't imagine it could get worse than it already was--clearly my imagination was too limited. I'm so sorry for you, your colleagues, and your students.
Thank you, Emma. I have spent this year angry in more ways than I knew I could be angry, but I've also been so grateful for your friendship and generosity. I'm having a mug of rainy-day cocoa tonight.
I have admired your teaching for so many years, Lauren--since before I'd even met you in person, through materials you generously posted publicly. It is absolutely incredible for SNC to think that it can maintain viability as it strips out the kind of skill, creativity, and dedication you offer.
