A reader writes:
My alma mater, Hiram College, announced two days ago a reorganization plan that includes the termination of a tenure-track faculty position in philosophy and the removal of the philosophy major. This leaves Hiram with one (!) tenured philosophy professor and only a minor in philosophy. The soon-to-be terminated tenure-track professor, Megan Altman, is a promising Heidegger and Kierkegaard scholar with publications to her name. In other words, she possesses a quality academic record consistent with her career trajectory at a teaching college (four years removed from the reception of her PhD).
You can find recent accounts of the events at Hiram over the past year in Inside Higher Education. I will link these accounts below the main body of this email in case you or your readers take interest in the details.
I am not opposed to many of the proposals in the reorganization plan. Small liberal-arts colleges face great challenges in the current economic climate of higher-education. Hiram has been on a downward trajectory for more than two decades because of chronic mismanagement by successive administrations. In addition to the administrative bloat of most universities, Hiram has suffered from sclerotic professional course offerings and a general failure to keep up with the better liberal arts colleges in the Midwest. It still offers a communication major, for instance, an outdated field of study which has long been replaced by concentrations in public relations, journalism, etc at most universities. These professional course concentrations, which are tied to the perceptions of the market-place and thus especially subject to change, should be frequently revised and redesignated.
The point I wish to make is the following: you simply cannot be a liberal arts college without the option to major in philosophy. You can be a quality community college, technical college, or possibly regional branch of a public university, but you sacrifice all plausible claims to being a liberal arts college once you go down this route and remove the philosophy major. This point must be forcibly made to the administrators and Board of Trustees at Hiram, who will meet in the coming weeks to vote on the plan. What Hiram may attain in short-term financial relief will come at a great price in terms of institutional legitimacy and academic respectability.
Inside Higher Ed Feature of the "New" Liberal Arts (May 2nd)
Inside Higher Ed Feature on Anxiety at Hiram (May 9th)
Inside Higher Ed Feature on Interdisciplinary Redesign (May 15th)
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