Building Campus Cohesiveness
I applaud the university finally expanding the
West Campus ("Building a New Northeastern," September). In September
1986, I moved into Museum Villa Apartments, now known as Burstein Hall.
When I would tell fellow students where I lived, I would receive puzzled
looks and the question "where's that?" It was as if campus life
did not exist beyond the Stearns co-op building and West Apartments, now
Willis Hall. My roommates and I felt isolated and missing campus life compared
to those students who lived in the area surrounding the quad. The West
Campus initiative is exactly what the university needs to tie all students
into university life.
James F. Nardozzi, CJ'89
Waterbury, Connecticut
Reproductive Science Snag
In response to "Uncommon Law" (September) and attorney Susan
Crockin's decade of advocacy in "working on the cutting edge of reproductive
science and the law," there are some critical issues that need to
be addressed. Crockin is justified in questioning whether the young egg
donors understand the risk of taking fertility drugs. She states, "I'm
concerned about the effects of those drugs and the hyperstimulation of
the reproductive system." Her concern, after all these years, is perplexing,
as she must have been cognizant of the fact that the industry and drug
companies have downplayed the risks for years. Donor eggs are big business
and the ethical and safety issues should have been debated in a public
forum before becoming routine practice.
Since there's no regulation of the baby-making business, legal disputes
will require specialized services. In the meantime, the children created
have no rights, and fertile and infertile women who have been harmed by
these procedures have no legal representation in the high stakes of reproductive
science, which, in my opinion, is out of control.
Linda DeBenedictis
Norwood, Massachusetts
DeBenedictis is president of New England Patients' Rights Group.
Sore Scholars, Livid Lecturers
A number of errors and misrepresentations in Bill Kirtz's September
article, "Gypsy Scholars and Liberated Lecturers" [Talk of the
Gown], necessitate my response.
First, as a basic issue of journalism, my name is Deanne (not Diane)
Harper, as I told Kirtz at our interview and as is printed on the business
card I gave him.
Kirtz's representation of me as a part-time faculty member misleads
your readers and misrepresents my status. I am an Associate Academic Specialist,
not an "academic specialist" as Kirtz describes. Academic specialist
is my job title. The quotation marks he put around this phrase when describing
tenured faculty reflect the bias with which he approached the topic. An
academic specialist at Northeastern University is a full-time faculty member,
non-tenure-track, and thus represents a third category of faculty beyond
part-time and tenured. That I am an associate academic specialist shows
that I have been promoted within that rank. I do indeed supplement my modest
salary with adjunct work at N.U., teaching mostly upper-level professional
writing courses, so I know of the part-time situation. Yet I spoke to Kirtz
very much as a full-time faculty member who has found many and varied career
opportunities at N.U.-and who has made significant contributions to several
of its programs. I wish he had made that clear to your readers.
In agreeing to be interviewed, I had one purpose. I wished to show that,
in my opinion, N.U. has made a wise decision in introducing the academic
specialist position. This position makes possible a pool of accomplished
and experienced faculty whose primary activity is to teach, whose primary
loyalties lie with N.U., and whose compensation package allows important
time for professional development and program service. I meant to suggest
that this is a much better response to institutional and student needs
than the large pool of exploited adjunct faculty. Part of my discussion,
however, included a recognition that the expansion of the academic specialist
rank could be viewed as something that challenges tenure-though I respectfully
disagree. I support the idea of tenure and I (and my students) benefit
significantly from the assistance and cooperation of tenured (or tenure-track)
faculty. Any attempt to pit tenure-track faculty against non-tenure-track
faculty offers no value to the N.U. community. The problems of compensation
and status for all faculty are real and need a great deal of discussion
within this institution. I wish Kirtz's article had done more to contribute
to that discussion.
Deanne Harper
Ryder Hall
Harper is an associate academic specialist in the School of General
Studies.
One hardly knows where to begin with "Gypsy Scholars and Liberated
Lecturers." One might analyze Professor Kirtz's tone (flippant and
supercilious) or his use of tired and hackneyed phrases ("newly hatched
doctors," "sheepskin snobbery"). Perhaps one might choose
to take issue with his inaccuracies that would not be tolerated in a piece
by a sophomore journalism major. One should be most concerned about Kirtz's
misrepresentations of facts: while it is true that humanities departments
create more PhDs than there are university jobs, it is not true that all
PhD candidates pursue the degree with the intention of joining the tenured
ranks. And to say that the bulk of courses in the Department of English
are taught by part-timers takes on quite a different meaning if one also
specifies that the number of full-time, tenured or tenure-track faculty
in the department is twenty-and, according to the admissions office, the
number of first-year students this year is 2,833. Tenured and tenure-line
faculty teach writing, of course, but we obviously cannot cover the sections
mandated by a university-wide writing requirement.
Kirtz was apparently unable to furnish a balanced cross-section of part-time
experiences across disciplines, instead making writing instructors his
main subject. He seems unaware of changes in English departments across
the country and various movements for reform that have emerged in response
to these changes.
Like many others in the university, Kirtz believes in the myth that
the draw of Boston and New England is enough to supply an unlimited pool
of qualified, experienced part-time writing instructors. On the contrary.
While most of the people who apply to teach writing in the Department of
English have MAs, and some hold the PhD, such people often have little
experience teaching writing and even less knowledge of the field of rhetoric
and composition. Last spring, the Department of English conducted a search
to fill nine full-time positions in teaching the required writing courses
of the university. Out of a pool of sixty-odd applications, and after interviewing
twelve or so candidates, we identified only three external applicants in
whom we had enough confidence to make an offer. (That is, in addition to
the experienced, knowledgeable, and hardworking internal candidates to
whom we made offers.) Two of the external finalists found themselves better
jobs-that is, less teaching and more money-elsewhere.
"Talk of the Gown" is hardly the forum for a reasoned, thoughtful
discussion of the very serious issue of the status of part-time lecturers
at N.U. and elsewhere, nor is it intended to be. However, this is no excuse
for the way in which Kirtz constantly goes for the cheap shot, the empty
zinger, and the cute alliterative phrase in his article. I do not find
the systematic and institutional exploitation of non-tenure-track faculty
amusing. I am angered and disheartened by Kirtz's distortions of the realities
of part-time employment at N.U. It is a source of bitter embarrassment
to me that we are once again conducting an external search for full-time
lecturers and asking them to take on a tremendous amount of work for very
little pay.
Finally, there is something very disturbing about the way Kirtz uses
the issue of part-time instruction and the words of non-tenure-track faculty
(here twisted out of context) to attack the tenure system. Of course there
are tensions between tenured faculty and non-tenured faculty; any system
in which salary inequities exist is bound to create problems. Kirtz exacerbates
and exploits these tensions by describing part-time instruction as an "attractive
alternative" to tenure attractive, in my mind, only to those who revere
the bottom line and ignore the long-term benefits of developing a faculty,
full-time and part-time, committed to the intellectual well-being of a
university and its teaching and research mission. Of course we are in need
of tenure reform-not the abolishment of tenure by attrition and accident,
but reform through a careful post-tenure faculty development and review
system.
I read "Gypsy Scholars" as a companion piece to an equally
incoherent article Kirtz wrote a few years ago, in which he described most
tenured professors as craven, self-serving, and lazy ["The Academic
Womb," Talk of the Gown, November 1995]. I am led to conclude that
Kirtz is a self-hating tenured associate professor. Perhaps as part of
his campaign for abolishing tenure, Kirtz should give up his own tenured
position and become one of those "liberated lecturers" that he
finds so entertaining. Kirtz might then find himself out of a job-if the
journalism that he practices in N.U.'s alumni magazine is any indication
of what he teaches his students.
Kathleen Kelly
Holmes Hall
Kelly is an associate professor of English.
We were quite surprised to read Bill Kirtz's piece: surprised that a
journalism professor would write so poorly, research so irresponsibly,
and above all boldly report so much false information.
Kirtz's information about lecturers and part-time instructors at Northeastern,
and in particular lecturers in the English department, is irresponsibly
researched. The dichotomy he suggests (either tenured/tenure track or part-time)
is used for university budget and governance discussions, but not for most
other daily university and department operations. English department lecturers
are full-time, with benefits (including retirement investment options and
health benefits).
Lecturers and part-time instructors are fully involved in curricular
development. Lecturers receive consistently high merit evaluations based
on their teaching, and even though we are not able to use scholarship or
committee work towards merit consideration, we are active committee members
and scholars. We publish poetry, novels, articles, composition manuals,
and present papers-the activities of academia, and not the highly insulting
"gypsy" scholarship Kirtz suggests.
He begins the text of the article with the ultimate insult, "They
can't get on [the tenure track]." He insults our students and demonstrates
his outdated pedagogy by naming some English sections "remedial."
His insults continue: he suggests in the title that we are "liberated
lecturers," which we suppose is one way to describe the experience
of serving at the pleasure of the chair, the dean, the university. He fails
to recognize the ambivalence and complexity of our positions: we are simultaneously
excellent and exploited, and he in fact participates in our exploitation
by presenting us as liberated.
Finally, we would like to point out that the tensions and alliances
in the English department-and of course they exist, as in most situations
involving human relations-are not clearly cut along tenure/nontenure fault
lines, but along lines involving subject areas,
pedagogical priorities, and sometimes simply personalities.
In sum, we are quite surprised that his article was published. We are
at a loss to explain why he may have decided to pursue this topic about
which he seem to know so little.
Tiane Donahue
Mary Annas
Mary Balestraci
Aleta Cane
Carole Center
Kalo Clarke
Lynn Dornink
Andrew Grobman
Matt Higgs
Ruth Lepson
Matt Noonan
Susan Pilaud
Cynthia Richards
Ellen Scharfenberg
Lorianne Schaub
Gregory Zuch
The signers are lecturers, part-time instructors, and PhD candidates
in the English department.
Safe Conduct
I was just forwarded a copy of the letter from Richard DiBona in the
September issue. In the letter, DiBona chided Stephen Cotter and me for
wearing our fall protection equipment incorrectly. If DiBona were more
familiar with the equipment, he would realize that we are wearing a multipurpose
harness with four D rings. This commonly used harness has one ring on the
chest for descending (rappelling), two on the hips for positioning, and
one in the back for fall protection. Since our backs are not in the picture,
and the anchorage point is on the boom behind us (obscured from view),
even someone without an engineering background should be able to figure
out that they will not be able to see the lanyard connection. I think it
is admirable that DiBona has some understanding of safety issues, but as
a manager, he should know enough to get all of the facts before implying
wrongdoing on the part of a professional. I can assure all of your readers
that my first concern is with the safety of my crew, whether 150 feet in
the air or on the ground. Only a fool would need further justification
of its effects on the bottom line to act on such vital safety issues.
Robert Rottenbucher
Boston
Robert Rottenbucher is a professional engineer at the HNTB Companies.
Millennium Bug
I was surprised to read in your September issue that the June 1999 graduation
is described as "Northeastern's final graduating class of the twentieth
century . . . " Unless you don't plan to have a graduation in the
year 2000, that graduation next year will be the final one of the twentieth
century. It's amazing to see that even N.U. is infected with the common
misconception about when the turn of a century occurs. Just as the years
1 through 100 represent the first century, the years 1901 through 2000
represent the twentieth century. You could look it up.
C. C. Anderson, E'48
Rolling Bay, Washington
School Inspirit
On October 2, I attended my first Northeastern football game, on the
campus of BC. I did not at the time own anything with a husky on it. When
I attended N.U., it was not a proud time in Boston history. I transferred
in during the years of the busing riots. The city was spewing hatred of
all kinds, and while it was a great time to listen to the lectures of Jack
Levin on social deviance, it was very threatening to be in the midst of
such evil. It is difficult for me to separate the city's trauma from my
years at the school. I do not regret my education from N.U., and I do contribute
monetarily to the school's future.
And so, I purchased some hats and a T-shirt in anticipation of the upcoming
game. For the first time in the almost twenty-five years since I graduated,
I was extremely proud of N.U. They showed up at BC clearly ready to play
a team that is in a different league (I-A) and obviously is supported by
a system that outspends N.U.'s athletic budget many times over. They never
lost sight of the fact that they might actually win the game.
I've been reading with great expectations the planned changes taking
place at N.U., especially that of transforming the school into a residential,
campus-oriented school versus a commuter school. Hear! Hear! Go Huskies!
Felicia R. Penn, LA'75
Hyannis, Massachusetts
Correction: In "Uncommon Law" (September), Deena Hurwitz,
L'96, is quoted as saying the right to trial was unknown in Bosnia before
the recent conflict. In fact, a right to trial did exist in the former
Yugoslavia, but there was little protection for the rights of an accused
before or during trial. Also, she worked in the West Bank after law school,
not Israel.
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