This is an open letter to the University of Oregon's administration, arguing for the repeal of their decision to "phase out" Professor Ken DeBevoise, one of the very best, and most unusual teachers I have had the good fortune of learning with. Even more appalling, perhaps, than the administration's near-uniform disinterest in student opinion is the devastating notion, widely-accepted, that a University is more about research prestige than it is about undergraduate education.
To Whom It May Concern:
This letter is my contribution to the student campaign to convince the University of Oregon Administration to retain Ken DeBevoise as an instructor of Political Science; my attempt to penetrate the wall of uncommunicative indifference encountered by this campaign.
I would like to begin by addressing a recurring motif in faculty and administrative responses to student correspondence in this matter--an accusation of naivete. I expect, based on recent evidence, that my case for Ken DeBevoise's continued employment will appear to some as being underpinned by a sort of naive idealism, no doubt attributed to my age. The same will have been read into countless other letters by my peers. Some worldly person or other will no doubt try to tell us that as we "grow up", we will understand and grow into the administration's way of thinking. Yet this is precisely what I, at least, am determined not to do. You see, while I am aware that idealism may not, perhaps, result in anything, the kind of dismissive cynicism evident in the administration's attitude toward education will most certainly not. It is my fervent hope that I never resort to this sort of passive acceptance of circumstantial difficulty, which is the most generous assessment of the attitude characterizing most of the response to our protest.
I concede that there may be intricacies to the circumstances that we do not comprehend--not because we are unwilling to try, but because we have been prevented from doing so, as in the case of the administration's refusal to cordially explain the department's financial constraints, or to provide adequate transparency of process. I do not believe, however, that these circumstances would appear quite so insurmountable if you were determined to keep Ken DeBevoise teaching at this university, which we are, and you should be.
As a student, I value, above everything, a good education. My highest priority, therefore, is that the university--into whose coffers I am pouring a hefty international tuition--retain the precious few professors who are able to give me such an education. To cite my insistence on getting what I am paying for as mere naivete would be, at best, a reduction, if not downright incoherence. It is the university's stated purpose to provide a quality education. It is my prerogative to expect it. If we are in disagreement, it is either a matter of differing priorities or divergent conceptions of what constitutes a quality education.
First: If a students' sense of priority were shared by the Political Science Department, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the University Administration, I am convinced the financial circumstances cited as the cause of Ken's being phased out would seem far more surmountable. What disturbs me is not that the aforementioned parties might literally be unable to keep Ken teaching, but that they are entirely, transparently, unwilling to try. Especially in light of his willingness to continue to teach at a lower pay, or even unpaid. I cannot envision stronger evidence of his single-minded dedication to undergraduate education; a dedication, I might add, that is sorely remiss from a majority of the faculty currently employed by this university. I, for one, cannot understand why one would choose to compromise further the quality of courses offered by the Political Science Department by eliminating him from the curriculum. One can only infer that providing a quality education is not the institution highest priority. What, then, one might ask, is?
Second: Several of the responses received by me and my peers have leaned heavily on an invocation of the university's responsibilities as a research institution. In response to criticism of the administration's privileging research over education, Senior Vice Provost of Student Affairs Russ Tomlin was quoted in the Oregon Daily Emerald as saying: “It’s important to appreciate the research mission and the education mission. It’s not a dichotomy. Our best research faculty can be our best instructors. The pitting of research versus education is an oversimplification of such matters.”
With all due respect to Mr. Tomlin, and to his admirable intentions, his assessment of the compatibility of the university's research and education missions is deeply flawed. In his column for the Register Guard (dated March 8, 2010), retired professor Ronald Wixman makes plain the systematic compromise of educational standards in favor of research at this university. With the reality being what it is, Mr. Tomlin's claim that "our research faculty can be our best instructors" just doesn't cut it. In order for the "research-education-balance" argument to hold water, they must be. Or administrators must admit that the balance between research and education is tenuous, at best, and that it must at least be rigorously monitored, erring on the side of education.
The fact is, faculty chosen for their achievements in specific and undoubtedly fascinating fields of research, do not always make good teachers. Least of all when they lecture monologically to a class of more than, say, 50 students, to be generous. There are precious few instructors who are able to simply hold the attention of a 50 student classroom, much less communicate information, to say nothing of the ability to foster innovative thinking or analytical technique. Passing over what this says about our prized accomplished researchers, I will instead point out that Ken DeBevoise is able to achieve all this and more.
It should be clear, then, why the simultaneous decisions to fire an unusually effective and devoted teacher, and to hire explicitly research oriented faculty is so discomfiting to those of us in the student body who came here to learn, rather than to distantly admire what our professors have. It should also be perfectly plain that what is at stake, for those of us fighting for Ken DeBevoise' job, is an uncompromising vision of undergraduate education, of its purpose and its duty to those it claims to serve.
Respectfully,
Devika Bakshi
To Whom It May Concern:
This letter is my contribution to the student campaign to convince the University of Oregon Administration to retain Ken DeBevoise as an instructor of Political Science; my attempt to penetrate the wall of uncommunicative indifference encountered by this campaign.
I would like to begin by addressing a recurring motif in faculty and administrative responses to student correspondence in this matter--an accusation of naivete. I expect, based on recent evidence, that my case for Ken DeBevoise's continued employment will appear to some as being underpinned by a sort of naive idealism, no doubt attributed to my age. The same will have been read into countless other letters by my peers. Some worldly person or other will no doubt try to tell us that as we "grow up", we will understand and grow into the administration's way of thinking. Yet this is precisely what I, at least, am determined not to do. You see, while I am aware that idealism may not, perhaps, result in anything, the kind of dismissive cynicism evident in the administration's attitude toward education will most certainly not. It is my fervent hope that I never resort to this sort of passive acceptance of circumstantial difficulty, which is the most generous assessment of the attitude characterizing most of the response to our protest.
I concede that there may be intricacies to the circumstances that we do not comprehend--not because we are unwilling to try, but because we have been prevented from doing so, as in the case of the administration's refusal to cordially explain the department's financial constraints, or to provide adequate transparency of process. I do not believe, however, that these circumstances would appear quite so insurmountable if you were determined to keep Ken DeBevoise teaching at this university, which we are, and you should be.
As a student, I value, above everything, a good education. My highest priority, therefore, is that the university--into whose coffers I am pouring a hefty international tuition--retain the precious few professors who are able to give me such an education. To cite my insistence on getting what I am paying for as mere naivete would be, at best, a reduction, if not downright incoherence. It is the university's stated purpose to provide a quality education. It is my prerogative to expect it. If we are in disagreement, it is either a matter of differing priorities or divergent conceptions of what constitutes a quality education.
First: If a students' sense of priority were shared by the Political Science Department, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the University Administration, I am convinced the financial circumstances cited as the cause of Ken's being phased out would seem far more surmountable. What disturbs me is not that the aforementioned parties might literally be unable to keep Ken teaching, but that they are entirely, transparently, unwilling to try. Especially in light of his willingness to continue to teach at a lower pay, or even unpaid. I cannot envision stronger evidence of his single-minded dedication to undergraduate education; a dedication, I might add, that is sorely remiss from a majority of the faculty currently employed by this university. I, for one, cannot understand why one would choose to compromise further the quality of courses offered by the Political Science Department by eliminating him from the curriculum. One can only infer that providing a quality education is not the institution highest priority. What, then, one might ask, is?
Second: Several of the responses received by me and my peers have leaned heavily on an invocation of the university's responsibilities as a research institution. In response to criticism of the administration's privileging research over education, Senior Vice Provost of Student Affairs Russ Tomlin was quoted in the Oregon Daily Emerald as saying: “It’s important to appreciate the research mission and the education mission. It’s not a dichotomy. Our best research faculty can be our best instructors. The pitting of research versus education is an oversimplification of such matters.”
With all due respect to Mr. Tomlin, and to his admirable intentions, his assessment of the compatibility of the university's research and education missions is deeply flawed. In his column for the Register Guard (dated March 8, 2010), retired professor Ronald Wixman makes plain the systematic compromise of educational standards in favor of research at this university. With the reality being what it is, Mr. Tomlin's claim that "our research faculty can be our best instructors" just doesn't cut it. In order for the "research-education-balance" argument to hold water, they must be. Or administrators must admit that the balance between research and education is tenuous, at best, and that it must at least be rigorously monitored, erring on the side of education.
The fact is, faculty chosen for their achievements in specific and undoubtedly fascinating fields of research, do not always make good teachers. Least of all when they lecture monologically to a class of more than, say, 50 students, to be generous. There are precious few instructors who are able to simply hold the attention of a 50 student classroom, much less communicate information, to say nothing of the ability to foster innovative thinking or analytical technique. Passing over what this says about our prized accomplished researchers, I will instead point out that Ken DeBevoise is able to achieve all this and more.
It should be clear, then, why the simultaneous decisions to fire an unusually effective and devoted teacher, and to hire explicitly research oriented faculty is so discomfiting to those of us in the student body who came here to learn, rather than to distantly admire what our professors have. It should also be perfectly plain that what is at stake, for those of us fighting for Ken DeBevoise' job, is an uncompromising vision of undergraduate education, of its purpose and its duty to those it claims to serve.
Respectfully,
Devika Bakshi
1 comment:
Really well written. Also, top researchers are most emphatically not good teachers. The kind of thinking required for the two are completely different. The ability to problem-solve almost never comes with the ability to articulate and connect with a group of people who, unlike them, are still learning about any given field. Personally, I'm really frustrated with the quality of teaching here (supposedly the top research institute in this country).
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