Compromise should not require curricular sacrifice Web Exclusive

Author: Teddy Flanagan ’04

As a liberal arts college, Middlebury's goal has always been to foster academic diversity and intellectual curiosity. The range of study at Middlebury is, has been and always should be, as diverse as the Vermont weather. Rigidity in any form doesn't fit with the spirit of the campus.

That is why it has been distressing to follow this ongoing debate about the future of the American Literature major. We all expect Middlebury's brilliant professors to routinely question the viability of their curriculum; that's how scholarship evolves. Sadly, though, this debate seems to have turned into a pitched battle of firmly entrenched positions. This runs contrary to the very ideals that make Middlebury such an amazing academic institution.

Reading letters in Middlebury Magazine and online articles from The Campus, I wonder why a compromise can't be reached. Middlebury College certainly has the resources to broaden its academic possibilities without choosing to eliminate others.

I was back on campus for the first time in over a year for homecoming this year. Are you telling me that new library can't accommodate every literature syllabus under the sun? I know there are professors at Middlebury equally qualified to teach Melville and Dickens, Conrad and Hemingway, James the Brit and James the Yank.

We should let this potential be fully realized. I think a unified department of English and American literature is a fantastic idea. Of course some might say, when it comes to American and English literature, good fences make good neighbors.

Middlebury always preaches "curricular breadth." Allow the depth of study facilitated by the current majors to coexist with the "breadth" that would be accomplished by having more courses and credits cross-listed. Sprinkle in a few course options each year that address trans-Atlantic literary topics and all of a sudden your studies are more fully integrated.

I would have liked to have had more opportunity to read between American and English lines while at school, but I wouldn't change a thing about the curriculum I did follow. I think it would be a tragedy to sacrifice the tradition of Middlebury's American Literature major at the alter of "curricular breadth." At the same time, proponents of the change are absolutely right to call for a unified field of study. We shouldn't let departmental inflexibility destroy the chance for what could be a truly productive synthesis.

I think extremely highly of all the literature professors at Middlebury, and especially those with whom I worked in American Literature. They have given me an education that I value immensely. And maybe it's nostalgia (if you can be nostalgic at 23) for that education that makes me reluctant to embrace such a sweeping change. But, then again, Middlebury is about tradition and nostalgia too. I've got the cane to prove it.

Middlebury's vast material and human resources make an ideal solution easily attainable. Sure, Ahab and Gatsby would never compromise, but they weren't liberal arts educators. American Literature is invaluable to the college, and with the proper guidance, its future should be even brighter.