March 16, 2023
Below is the letter I wrote to Provost Othman following his meeting with the Department of Language and Literature on March 15, 2023. The meeting was the second one our department had with the provost. The first was near the start of the academic year on September 26, 2022. This second meeting was called suddenly during Spring Break (to take place the following Wednesday); it was called without any indication of topic or agenda. Both this meeting and the prior one in fall semester were tense and resulted in many followup discussions among colleagues about the challenges ahead of us in working productively with the administration.
Provost Othman did not respond to my email. I had not intended to post my letter to him at this blog. Given however, the fast pace of the provost’s plans to eliminate programs (with a planned Senate vote on April 11, 2023), and the special faculty meeting called on March 31, and the need I feel for a more or less complete record of our difficulties to plan curricula and programs, I am posting this entry on the morning of March 31, 2023–prior to our faculty meeting (but with a time stamp of its original deliver to the provost).
| March 16, 2023 Dear Saib—It was good to meet with you yesterday, and to receive an invitation from you to have future conversations, perhaps with coffee. Such pleasantries—standing invitations for an open door and spontaneous conversations—can no longer be assumed at SXU; but we can work together to rebuild a campus atmosphere where we are all more connected. I know your introduction to SXU has not been smooth. Such are the times we inhabit. Tension abounds for so many reasons—the pandemic, the changing culture of the institution, the changing administration, the changing faculty, the changing students. When you arrived, you were entering a traumatized community, and so I think you encountered a lot of skepticism and wariness. There were many causes, no doubt. Dr. Joyner’s leadership was a big one. Over the past six years, we have devolved, in my opinion, into a community of divisions and distrust. Morale is bad, to say the least. So many faculty and staff have left the institution, leaving gaping holes in needed structures and programs. Many—most, I would say—of those who remain are embittered, and for different, but related, reasons. Many faculty, not just a noisy few, feel that war has been declared on the faculty as a whole, and that communication has broken down, irreparably so. Many have given up, and most who remain active feel weighed down by hopelessness. These negative effects cannot all be blamed on Dr. Joyner. But I would say that she has pursued an agenda that inevitably led to our current climate, or at least the climate you found upon entering the institution. Many, I realize, respect and praise Dr. Joyner for her effectiveness in cutting expenses, paying down bills, and generally improving the financial footing of the institution. And perhaps the skillset needed for accomplishments in this area requires the kind of steely resolve, parsimoniousness, and management style Dr. Joyner exemplified. I would argue, however, that she is leaving the institution in a state much more imperiled than what she found upon entering it. From my perspective, we currently lack the will and resources needed to rebound. Without hope, without talent, without a collective resolve, without a community, I and many colleagues feel that we are teetering on the brink. Until we are able to rebuild a climate of genuine respect (and doing so takes more than emphasizing at meetings that we need to have respectful discussion), we will lack the wherewithal and capacity to rebuild. I have said many of these things directly to Dr. Joyner, and I have written at length in my blog about all these thoughts—so there’s nothing new here, and nothing I feel uncomfortable sharing or having others share. What is new is your current role. As the highest-ranking administrator of the institution, you have an opportunity to turn things around, even if only slightly. As I wrote often to and of Dr. Joyner, I hope you succeed. Your success will raise up all of us. It’s clear you and I have very different views of what is needed for turning things around. Be it curriculum, or contemporary trends in education, or prognostications about the future, or ways to interpret data, or even just what we view as “good for students,” I think we have many points of contention. I don’t view that as a problem, and I don’t think you do either, as I do think you are committed to transparency and reasoned discussion. I don’t expect to achieve persuasion on many matters, but I do have hopes for the building of mutual respect and commitment to some shared understanding of working towards the common good, at least in its basic outlines. At our meeting yesterday, I felt some doors were open to dialogue, or perhaps the conditions of dialogue. The past administration did not articulate its views for programs, or numbers of faculty, or for commitments of investment in faculty and academic processes. We were asked, essentially, “What are our plans—to do more, to do better?” Of course, those should be standing questions. But they shouldn’t be the only questions. Without being stated, the humanities and general education were being phased out. If they need to be phased out, let’s have an honest discussion about that process. The indirections used by the Joyner administration, in my view, were dishonest and obnoxious. Her techniques of micro-managing and employing good-cop/bad-cop dynamics didn’t help, and neither did her use of the Board to run roughshod over votes of both the faculty and Senate. But I digress. At our meeting yesterday, [one of our colleagues] did a good job identifying moments when some of us—you and I included—became very entrenched in presenting our positions, sometimes repetitively, sometimes with increasing volume. I have noticed this tendency in me, and yes, in you, too. In our defense, sometimes the repeated efforts to clarify are called for. And, just because we are committed to clear, transparent, possibly emphatic, explanations of positions that we hold, it does not mean we cannot change our positions. You said yesterday that [a colleague at the meeting] changed your mind on at least one matter. I don’t know if you and I will change each other’s minds—but I do hope we can enhance the contexts we draw upon and build in our discussions. I’m not a fan of the “agree to disagree” resignation (that has been a mantra of the Joyner administration), at least when it’s resorted to as a first option. The phrase does name a respectful recognition of difference, provided all the engagement leading to the statement is both honest and thorough. In writing frankly to you, I hope I am not closing a door to ongoing discussion. I hope I am sending a message of earnest commitment to the project ahead of us—fixing SXU. I also hope I am conveying that we’re at a point where unusual discussion like this is arising. We’re at a point where, at this very late point in my career, I have not much else to lose, so why not do my best to urge new collaborations, new paradigms, in as honest, and vulnerable, a voice as possible? Barring unforeseen developments, next year will likely be my final year at SXU, so I wish to do what I can to ensure the program I have helped to build will continue to exist—not merely for its own welfare, but for the good it is doing in high schools across the state and elsewhere. So many program-building faculty will soon be leaving SXU—this year and next, and many of us quite prematurely. The climate is so inhospitable, but perhaps, with some tweaks and new dynamics here and there, something can be started soon to energize new blood, in a new collective, with new commitments around our mission. Thanks again for meeting with us; I hope we can achieve a little more consensus—both on the programmatic issues and the larger agenda for the university. Be well—Angelo |