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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Hmmm, I guess the only correct address for
Parama is <a href="mailto:proy@ucr.edu">proy@ucr.edu</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'> John Briggs
[mailto:jcbriggs@ucr.edu] <br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Friday, February 04, 2005
5:01 PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Christine Deviny;
Steven.Axelrod@ucr.edu; DrBredbeck@aol.com; Gregory.Bredbeck@ucr.edu;
John.Briggs@ucr.edu; joseph.childers@ucr.edu; andrea.denny-brown@ucr.edu;
kimberly.devlin@ucr.edu; jennifer.doyle@ucr.edu; Emory.Elliott@ucr.edu;
cfabs@mindspring.com; carole.fabricant@ucr.edu; John.Ganim@ucr.edu;
George.Haggerty@ucr.edu; GEHaggerty@aol.com; Katherine.Kinney@ucr.edu;
josh.kun@ucr.edu; joshkun@aol.com; Tiffany.Lopez@ucr.edu; Toby.Miller@ucr.edu;
Vorris.Nunley@ucr.edu; Michelle.Raheja@ucr.edu; proy@ucr.edu@webmail.ucr.edu;
Stanley.Stewart@ucr.edu; James.Tobias@ucr.edu; Caroleanne.tyler@ucr.edu;
Deborah.Willis@ucr.edu; Traise.Yamamoto@ucr.edu; Susan.Zieger@ucr.edu;
englecturers@lists.ucr.edu<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: Voting for Chair</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Colleagues:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</blockquote>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><br>
Since I will be at a meeting at UCSB on Monday, I'm
taking this opportunity to register an opinion about the proposal to elect the
departmental chair. I'm against the motion, not only because I think it
is a reaction to a personality (the interim dean's) rather than a response to a
systemic problem, but also because it would introduce a series of new problems
without giving us greater benefits than the system of consultation, rotation, and
appointment that has served us for more than a generation.<br>
<br>
I agree with those who believe that the chairmanship
should not become a prize that subtly transforms well-meaning faculty members
into competing candidates and their colleagues into supporters and
rivals. There are higher though unglamorous principles at stake in the
selection of the chair, and they are at their heart democratic. There is
especially the unglamorous notion that there is a fairly regular rotation of
the most senior members of the department (at least those who are most
available and who have not disqualified themselves) into and out of the job,
and the tempering notion -- served by the principle of rotation -- that the
work is <i><span style='font-style:italic'>necessary</span></i> rather than <i><span
style='font-style:italic'>desirable, </span></i>something to take on rather
than to aspire toward. I don't believe a chair has served two
regular terms in the entire history of the Department. The only associate
to serve in the last thirty years has been Milton Miller, who was at that time
approaching retirement.<br>
<br>
In my twenty-five years on campus and my experience
with the selection of seven chairs, I have been impressed with how the choices
have always reflected a tacit consensus within the Department. There has
never been a sense that a selection has set us on a particular road -- on a
path that an election, with its inevitable roster of winners and losers, had
forced the Department to choose instead of another. <br>
<br>
Our current interim dean has committed a terrible
error in holding us in limbo, perhaps not even understanding that he was doing
so. But now he has finally appointed an interim chair, and will, if he
knows anything at all about his job, appoint one for a longer term beginning in
July. I think it would be wrong to indirectly institutionalize his grave
administrative mistake with an election process that would introduce new and
unnecessary uncertainties into our departmental life and our relations with the
college office. <br>
<br>
John Briggs<br>
<br>
<br>
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<br>
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<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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