[Englecturers] RE: Voting for Chair

[englecturers at lists.ucr.edu]

I'm not sure whether this email went through the first time so I'm resending
it.  Please note that there's a wrong address for Parama:  There aint no
such bird as proy at ucr.edu@webmail.ucr.edu.   I've changed it to:
proy at ucr.edu; proy at webmail.ucr.edu.  One of those addresses should go
through and prevent the screw-up with the cyberspace postmaster that I just
experienced.  - C.    

 

Dear colleagues:

 

So okay, my self-imposed moratorium on writing emails (made last week)
didn't last long (!), but in light of John's comments and given that I'm the
one who placed the motion in question on the agenda of Monday's meeting, I
feel I have to respond.

 

I actually share some of John's concerns about the proposed change in chair
selection, for reasons similar to, if not identical with, the ones he puts
forth.  I don't claim (and never did) that the change will usher in a
utopian reign or prove to be a panacea for all our current ills - and I'm
even willing to concede the possibility that certain unfortunate
consequences might result from it.  Nevertheless, given the events of the
past months, it seems clear to me that taking the selection of department
chair into our own hands is the lesser (BY FAR!) of two evils, and a
necessary course of action if we ever want to be able to look at ourselves
in the mirror again without cringing with embarrassment.

 

My motion was deliberately couched in the broadest terms, to avoid
prejudging the specific procedures we might want to adopt as a way of
choosing the chair.  In fact, there is nothing in my motion that would
prevent implementation of John's preferred method of regular rotation of
senior faculty (which I happen to agree with in principle).  The nightmarish
spectre John evokes, of a tumultuous election with competing slates of
candidates giving demagogic campaign speeches and promising three SUVs in
every garage to those willing to vote for them, strikes me as the mother of
all reductio(s) ad absurdum.  Need I point out that it bears no resemblance
whatever to what actually happens in those departments that choose their own
chairs?

 

It frankly boggles my mind how quickly we are willing to forgive and forget
inept and/or outrageous behavior on the part of administrators (not only
Martin's, but Jury's as well) and how little it takes for us to be appeased
by the scraps they eventually deign to throw at us.  Yes, hip hip hooray,
Martin finally did choose an interim chair - two months after the decision
should have been made and after he had (illegally) placed the department in
de facto receivership (under himself) and created an incredible amount of
confusion and uncertainty.  And for that we're supposed to feel grateful and
relieved - not to mention confident that from hereon in he will make good
decisions in a competent and timely fashion???!!!     

 

Even apart from the unconscionable length of time it took Martin to choose
an interim (or even an acting!) chair, there is also the little matter of
the method he used to make his decision.  Apparently Martin thinks the way
to go about such a task is to call into his office the 2 or 3 people he
views as synonymous with "the department" and try to strong-arm each in turn
to accept the position on his terms.  He clearly sees no need to consult
with or invite input from other faculty members - particularly (I can't help
but notice) if they don't happen to have a penis.  Perhaps he thinks the
rest of us are on the janitorial staff and teach courses to supplement our
salary?  Those completely ignored and kept out of the loop consist not only
of "lowly" assistant professors but also very senior people, including the
exceedingly tiny number of women full professors - yours truly, to cite just
one example.  

 

Now I hasten to reassure everyone that I not only have absolutely no
interest in becoming chair but I wouldn't accept the position under any
circumstances or for any amount of money.  Frankly I wouldn't want to be a
member of a department that was headed by me (was it W.C. Fields or Groucho
Marx who declared that he wouldn't want to belong to any club that accepted
him as a member?).  That being said, I find it outrageous that we have in
effect reverted to a governance system which is a pitiful parody of the
backroom, cigar-smoking, old boy's practices of decision-making along the
lines of Tammany Hall pols.  My problem with this system has nothing to do
with the specific tiny handful of people considered by Martin to be "the
department" - you'll no doubt recall that I myself proposed a co-chairship
of Emory and Steve, and later enthusiastically supported Steve's candidacy
for interim chair.  Rather, the problem is with an intolerably
authoritarian, sexist, and bureaucratic mindset which arbitrarily decides
who does and doesn't "count" in the department and which embraces a concept
of faculty "representation" that seems (to put the most generous
construction on it) a throwback to czarist Russia.  That anyone can see this
mindset and its resulting practices as at heart 'democratic' leaves me
absolutely speechless.  But hey, in a world in which military occupation
equals liberation and torture equals anti-terrorism, I guess all words have
a pretty wide latitude of meaning ..

 

On a more conciliatory note:  Given that John obviously feels strongly about
this issue and would in effect be disenfranchised if it were voted on at
Monday's meeting - and given also that all of us would no doubt benefit from
having a little more time to consider the matter and weigh alternative
methods of choosing a chair - I want to substitute the following motion for
the one I offered last week: 

 

THAT the motion to have the English Department choose its own chair rather
than cede that power to the (interim/acting/ersatz/fill-in-the-blank) dean
be postponed for discussion and voting on until the March department
meeting; and

 

THAT in the meantime the interim chair constitute an ad hoc committee to
look into the way other departments choose their chair and to either
recommend a specific method or propose several alternative methods by which
the English Department might henceforth select its chair.           

 

Slainte, 

 

Carole

 

 

 

 

 

  _____  

From: John Briggs [mailto:jcbriggs at ucr.edu] 
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 5:01 PM
To: Christine Deviny; Steven.Axelrod at ucr.edu; DrBredbeck at aol.com;
Gregory.Bredbeck at ucr.edu; John.Briggs at ucr.edu; joseph.childers at ucr.edu;
andrea.denny-brown at ucr.edu; kimberly.devlin at ucr.edu; jennifer.doyle at ucr.edu;
Emory.Elliott at ucr.edu; cfabs at mindspring.com; carole.fabricant at ucr.edu;
John.Ganim at ucr.edu; George.Haggerty at ucr.edu; GEHaggerty at aol.com;
Katherine.Kinney at ucr.edu; josh.kun at ucr.edu; joshkun at aol.com;
Tiffany.Lopez at ucr.edu; Toby.Miller at ucr.edu; Vorris.Nunley at ucr.edu;
Michelle.Raheja at ucr.edu; proy at ucr.edu@webmail.ucr.edu;
Stanley.Stewart at ucr.edu; James.Tobias at ucr.edu; Caroleanne.tyler at ucr.edu;
Deborah.Willis at ucr.edu; Traise.Yamamoto at ucr.edu; Susan.Zieger at ucr.edu;
englecturers at lists.ucr.edu
Subject: Re: Voting for Chair

 

Colleagues:


     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.

     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 necessary rather
than desirable, 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.

     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.  

     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. 

John Briggs


  


    




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