Alumnae/i raise concerns over alleged downsizing of English faculty, creative writing

At a Dec. 11 faculty meeting, the first item on the agenda was an announcement from the English Department about the creation of a new correlate sequence in creative writing. "It's sort of like announcing that you're serving breakfast on the Titanic," said one faculty member. "The irony is extraordinary."

The irony comes in light of an alumnae/i and student effort currently underway to stop across-the-board budget cuts from dismantling Vassar's creative writing courses after Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette met with the Department on Dec. 8 to discuss his desire to cut two adjunct English faculty members.

Administrators, including Chenette, had declined to comment on the situation on the record until after President Catharine Bond Hill send out an e-mail on Dec. 11 in response to the alumnae/i and student concerns. On Dec. 12, Chenette explained the situation to The Miscellany News, elaborating on the budgeting constraints that necessitated the cut in faculty spending.

Concerns began when several Vassar graduates expressed fear that by not renewing the contracts of two adjunct professors of English, there would not be enough instructors to teach creative writing courses. Mary Beth Caschetta '88 started the campaign a few days ago. Caschetta, who started a Facebook group to raise awareness and garner support, sent a letter of concern to hundreds of alumnae/i, encouraging them to e-mail Chenette, Vice President for Development Cathy Baer and Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier. The letter was also sent to The Miscellany News.

"Like every other institution in this country, Vassar abandons its artists when times get tough," read the letter, which went on to list more than a dozen significant Vassar writers, including Elizabeth Bishop, Mary McCarthy and Joe Hill. "Why would the College want to interrupt the future of today's writers? It seems to me, and I hope to you, that these bleak days of economic and political difficulty are exactly when we need to help young writers find their voice." Caschetta believes that the Facebook group will "undoubtedly attract" more interest in the coming days. The group already has about 400 members.

At Vassar, Caschetta was an English major who graduated Phi Beta Kappa and went on to found Caschetta Consulting, a firm that writes medical and pharmaceutical advertising.

Soon after the alumnae/i effort began, concerns spread to students, as the English Majors' Committee organized a meeting on the evening of Dec. 10 at 5:30 p.m. in the Rose Parlor to discuss the issue and devise a strategy for maintaining the creative writing program. The meeting attracted about 50 people, and several administrators appeared to be listening outside of the Rose Parlor.

The decision to cut the two adjunct faculty members follows the international economic downturn. The College's endowment has fallen over $200 million and Hill has been working with the Senior Officers on making significant cuts to the operating budget. These cuts are intended to preserve the value of the endowment. In an e-mailed message to the community earlier in the semester, Hill acknowledged that she would work with Chenette on reviewing non-tenure-track positions.

"We will not be filling any vacant positions, unless they are considered essential. The Senior Officers, along with the Associate Vice President for Human Resources and the Director of Budget and Planning, are examining all vacant administrative and staff positions to determine whether we can postpone filling them. The Dean of the Faculty and I are considering all faculty vacancies for 2009-10, including previously approved tenure track positions for 2009-10 and all leave replacements," read an e-mail from Hill sent on Oct. 27.

In her e-mail on the afternoon of Dec. 11, Hill noted that the Office of the Dean of the Faculty had been working as hard as possible to "reduce the faculty salary budget while maintaining as rich a curriculum as possible." She went on to write that about $750,000 of salary savings had to be achieved in the 2009-10 academic year. To do this, some non-tenured faculty members will not have their contracts renewed, and 70 to 80 courses will be cut from the curriculum. The College currently offers about 1,200 courses.

Some students and alumnae/i were eased by Hill's e-mail, saying that it proved to them that the administration was thinking through curricular decisions. "I think [Hill] is doing what she needs to do under extremely difficult circumstances," said one member of the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They're not just cutting programs. They're trying to really evaluate teaching loads and keep the curriculum as broad as possible."

Others still hoped to change the minds of Chenette and Hill. English Majors' Committee co-Chair Kate Fussner '09 was "pretty upset" by the e-mail, and is working with fellow co-Chair and English Department Academic Intern Sarah Yurch '09 to craft a response.

Caschetta's reaction to Hill's response seemed calmer. "It's great that the President has confirmed a commitment to the creative arts at Vassar, and particularly to the creative writing courses in the English Department," she wrote. "We know that these are difficult times, and that the task she faces is daunting, but we have every confidence she will do the right thing and preserve what is special about Vassar. We hope she will view our group of concerned Vassar grads as a resource and an enthusiastic part of the community."

Earlier, some alumnae/i had urged individuals to e-mail Baer and the Development Office, and possibly should threaten to forgo their donations to the College.

Baer, however, said that she has received only about 30 e-mails. "I have seen a good deal
of misinformation in some of those emails about the facts of this situation," she said. "Our alumnae/i care deeply about the College, so I'm not surprised that many have expressed their opinions. Most have said nothing about their donations to the College," she said.

Caschetta has tried from the beginning to instill the importance of the writing program to Vassar administrators. "I, for one, will be proud of Vassar for producing a new and wonderfully diverse generation of writers," she wrote to the Miscellany. "Perhaps the College would be prudent to take some recent good advice from our new powerful leader and literary figure in his own right: Cut with a scalpel, not with an axe."

Numerous alumnae/i have become involved in the campaign, contacting administrators and starting conversations. Jon Li ‘05, a double major in English and Chinese, recently launched a rumor site where he will collect information on professors or departments that may be downsized. "I welcome those (old or young) from other academic institutions to chime in," Li wrote in his first post. "Personally I want more information about what's going on. Who'll be fired? What programs will be cut?"

English Department Co-Chair and Associate Professor Peter Antelyes could not confirm that any professors were being let go. "At this point, we don't know anything for certain," he wrote in an e-mailed statement. "We're now in the midst of the staffing process."

However, according to a faculty member who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the Department has unanimously contested Chenette's plan to eliminate two adjuncts, partly because those two professors are necessary to teaching the creative writing program.

"It seems like [Chenette] really hasn't thought this whole process through. He doesn't seem to understand the difference between working artists who are adjuncts, and other kinds of faculty members. In private time, they work as writers, writing novels, editorials, and things of that nature, [in addition] to teaching writing courses," said the faculty member.


"[Chenette's] vision for the campus is to drastically reduce the number of adjuncts on campus. He doesn't seem interested in having a thoughtful discussion about his vision of the College without adjuncts. This can't happen as a solo mission; it really needs to involve faculty to plan out exactly what effect all of this may have on the curriculum," the faculty member continued.

A different faculty member, who also spoke on the condition on anonymity, contends that Chenette planned to reduce the number of adjunct faculty before the economic turmoil of the past few months. "I would agree with the characterization that the administration, not just the Dean, is conflating two different goals: the removal of adjuncts and the financial situation," the faculty member wrote in an e-mailed statement.

According to one source, the English Department has offered "cash for heads," agreeing to slash its budget if the adjuncts could remain on staff. However, the administration has refused. "He hasn't taken the obvious steps that many deans of faculty have taken at similar colleges, which is to create incentives for retiring plans," said a faculty member. "This is something that other colleges have done first, and he openly stated to the English Department that he had no such plan."

While some students are upset with the idea of course reductions, Vassar Student Association (VSA) Vice President for Academics Camille Friason '09 sees the economic crisis as an opportunity to put budget demands in perspective. "Our curriculum has ballooned in the past several years with no real oversight," she said. "Our curriculum needed to be looked at with a fine tooth comb. This financial crisis finally forced us to do what was needed. Not that cutting faculty is the right thing to be done, but the budget constraint really is making us look at what is a priority and how we can re-shape our curriculum to give our students the best education possible."

Friason noted that Vassar offers many courses in different departments on similar topics, as well as courses with very low enrollments. "Overall, Chenette is looking at creating a strong curriculum once again," she said.

As to the specific plan to reduce the number of faculty, Friason wished that a better solution could be found. "I think it's really unfortunate that some adjunct and visiting professors will not be coming back next year. Many students have asked how they can help keep the faculty here, and i honestly don't know if they can."

Currently, Friason—the VSA's primary liaison to the Office of the Dean of the Faculty—is unsure how severe the loss of faculty members might be. Staffing plans are due to Chenette's office by the end of the week, which Chenette will use to make a number of decisions to trim the budget, including some combination of eliminating courses and eliminating faculty. Another option being considered is to offer courses less frequently without eliminating them entirely. These courses appear in brackets in the Course Catalogue on years when they are not offered. "I feel like that is something the department chair can ask majors for input," noted Friason. "If they had to decide to bracket X or Y, they should have students' opinions, too."

Vassar's peer institutions are dealing with the financial crisis in a variety of ways. Wesleyan University is planning to cut the 2009-10 operating budget by $15.5 million, and increase its student body by 120 students over four years in order to take in an additional $3.9 million in revenue. Wesleyan has also frozen all faculty appointments and canceled tenure-track position searches. Smith College has similarly frozen all new searches for staff positions, which now must be reviewed by a special committee chaired by their president. Dartmouth College President James Wright announced in mid-November that the College had lost $200 million within three months, and would see "fewer faculty employees in the coming years."

Chenette has not officially released the names of the departments whose adjunct or visiting professors' contracts will not be renewed.

The VSA Executive Board will be meeting with Chenette and Hill on the afternoon of Dec. 12 to discuss the situation. VSA President Jimmy Kelly '09 will bring a "large stack of e-mails" that have been addressed to him from concerned students, which he will share with the administrators.

Numerous attendees of the English Majors' Committee meeting on Wednesday night pledged to take more radical action, such as a sit-in or a letter-writing campaign, if progress is not reached between the VSA Executive Board and the administration.

This story is currently developing. Check back for updates. [Dec. 12 at 3:10 p.m.]