National trends not cause for department dismissal Web Exclusive

Author: Betsy Currier Beacom '82

National trends not cause for department dismissal

I am afraid that Middlebury College is losing its way. It is certainly beginning
to look like a place I don't recognize.

I refer to the proposed dismantling of the American Literature curriculum and
the way in which this proposal has come about. I majored in Am Lit, and to this
day the American literary tradition remains a powerful presence in my
imagination and my orientation in the world. This tradition has been a unique
feature of the College's curriculum for over 70 years, thanks to professors
who have consistently seen and nurtured its value, but it is at present
threatened by a shoddy proposal to eliminate the American Literature department
and major.

The condescending responses to the letters I have written to President
Liebowitz, other members of the administration and faculty and the alumni
magazine protesting this proposed change, tell me that alumni opinion on this
subject is being dismissed. What, after all, do alumni know about the business
of structuring and maintaining academic departments? Perhaps little. But we do
know what majoring in American literature has meant to us in our lives beyond
college, and those of us who have raised our voices against this proposed
"merger" and the contemptible means by which it has come about are speaking
about more than course listings and teaching assignments.

A number of alumni have voiced their outrage over this proposal. Those who
support it should know that at the root of the alumni protests is no mere misty
nostalgia for our golden college years. Rather, we protest because we are the
products of this department and the systematic study of American literature. We
know, perhaps better than anyone, the value of this education.

I chose Middlebury because I wanted to study American literature. After reading
Emerson, Hawthorne and Frost in high school, I knew that this was the
literature I wanted to study. Middlebury was a perfect fit. If Middlebury
chooses to eliminate the Am Lit major, where will students who want to delve
into the American literary tradition find themselves? Students like me will
find themselves piecing together a patchwork of courses that don't add up to
the same kind of systematic study me and my fellow Am Lit majors have been
fortunate enough to have. Am Lit will disappear within the English department.
Sure, the faculty members will be able to teach what they want, but the students will
be the biggest losers under the proposed changes. One course here and one
course there do not an education make.

Alumni who have spoken out about the proposed change also know that the entire
Middlebury community stands to lose from it as well. This loss is one of
decency and doing the right thing. The process by which these proposed changes
have been advanced was neither open nor inclusive. Senior faculty members who
have been responsible for the growth of the department over the past 20-plus
years have been discounted and treated with deep disrespect. A decision as significant as the dissolution of an academic department should not be made by a few faculty members, but rather should only be carried out by unanimous vote as has always been the case at Middlebury. The disregard with
which [Professor] John McWilliams and [Fulton Professor of American Literature] Stephen Donadio have been treated by their colleagues is shameful. Where is the faculty's sense of integrity?

I have always had the sense that Middlebury, like the state of Vermont in which
it resides, would never change just to follow a trend. Yet in a recent article
in the alumni magazine, [Reginald L. Cook Professor of American Literature] Brett Millier, the chair of the American Literature and Civilizations Department, explains the
reasons for eliminating the major by referring to the national field [of
literary study], which is rapidly moving toward cultural studies. I find
this weak defense of such a drastic curricular change to be distressing. Is
Middlebury now interested in following trends, or doesn't it have a strong
enough sense of the proven value of its offerings to stand behind them? Since
when does Middlebury take a radical step like eliminating a highly regarded
major and department simply because everybody's doing it?