what else

I have to throw in with Nivedita, Devin, and Theo generally, disagreeing in some small ways here and there, but thinking the proposal ought to go through.

But I want to make another kind of intervention, or maybe two. One is about the FT/PT ratio and teaching loads. Related to that is the role of writing instruction in the department.

The inequity with which we are faced is that the large number of adjuncts we employ to teach 101 and 201 (and historically, 100)count against our ratio tally for staffing. I say "inequity" because it can be argued, as I have tried to do, that the teaching of college composition is a college responsibility because it is a college, not a departmental, requirement. President Travis and the previous provost each agreed with that argument; one claimed he was powerless to respond to the inequity, however, and one said that he would help me address it. He who was powerless prevailed, as you remember. I impute no skullduggery; there were many winds blowing at the time.

And so the status quo ante prevails to our disadvantage. Were we asked to count only our adjunct use in the Lit 200 sequence and the occasional lit elective, we would be able to argue coherently for a reduced teaching load. (Even so, academic politics being what they are, the likelihood that one department would be allowed to assume a 3/3 structure is slim.) There are two ways we can address the ratio problem, as I see it, since, as Devin has pointed out, ruling by decree failed in the first instance.

1) Adopt the lectureship proposal, with its fine rationale and its many safeguards and welcome several new full-time members of the department. The ratio will then shift, not enough but some. That leads me to the second consideration.

2) (What I am about to suggest has been on my mind for some time but as chair I felt it was not fair to bring it forward as it might seem too "ex cathedra"[?] coming from the chair.) The writing program ought to be given an autonomous position within the college and the department, not unlike ISP. The college should assume responsibility for funding it separately from the English Department's budget, except for the lines of its head and deputy head, and a core faculty of PhDs in Comp/Rhet, all which lines would remain in the English Department, at least for the present. The majority of the faculty of the College Writing Program would be made up of adjuncts and lecturers and the CWP would run not only 101 and 201 but WAC and other, similar, programs. Given what we now know about the role of writing in the disciplines, any rationale for the stewardship of such programs remaining the responsibility or privilege of the English Department seems to have been considerably weakened. Eventually, the CWP could be cut loose from the English Department completely and it could, like ISP, become its own department. Such a move would be a few years down the road, and may have specific characteristics unlike any we might envision at the moment, but I think should come.

The benefits I will leave mostly to your imaginations and will only touch on two: 1) each "discipline" (writing and lit) can argue for its own version of faculty mix, especially in re the question of lectureships, and teaching load based on the very, very dissimilar requirements in each case and 2) the CWP and Lit curricula can each have its own arena for research and innovation without the friendly but perhaps often misguided assistance of the other.

As for drawbacks, I admit that such a proposal as I imagine creates real problems for the Tom McGonigles of the department, real humanists and lovers of the word whose life-altering and enchanted effect on students is a direct consequence of being the very antithesis of this idea. But Tom and the one or two like him among our adjuncts are sui generis and even Tom found, as only he could, the right way to blend his experience with Mark's very necessary structure. Another argument from the negative is that it might weaken the English Department if the college no longer needed us or it might leave the writing faculty out on a limb unprotected as to tenure. Of the first of these I can only say that the current history of the college's affection for the department (54th St notwithstanding) suggests otherwise. To the second I point to a considerable transition period as wrinkles are ironed out.

I have basic pedagogic reasons for making these comments, but you all know or can imagine them, so I'll stop here.

Chris