Stanford's Creative Writing Contretemps

Part of the School of Humanities and Sciences (CEO World)

IMHO, it didn't look like "-isms" (for once) had anything to do with this decision, but after award-winning writer Joyce Carol Oates hinted that sexism was a factor, a "national backlash" resulted.

Stanford creative writing layoff ‘scandal’ ignites backlash among authors and students

Stanford University’s announcement that 23 creative writing instructors will be pushed out of their jobs and replaced has set off a national backlash in the literary community and among students in the program.

“Why would senior faculty vote to fire their colleagues who are doing so much of the work of teaching?” celebrated author Joyce Carol Oates posted on social media, raising questions about whether Stanford’s decision was meant to save money or was inspired by rank sexism.

“I am puzzled most by the lack of simple collegiality & generosity at one of the most wealthy universities in the world,” Oates wrote. “Stanford’s endowment could support an entire nation. Yet, much-admired (writing instructors) were fired after having requested modest raises which would have brought their salaries to levels far below senior faculty.”

Also, she noted, “only male senior professors voted to fire.”

Background from the Chronicle article: Pulitzer-prize winning author Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) founded Stanford's creative writing program in 1946. At the same time Texas oilman E.H. Jones, brother of Stanford English professor Richard Foster Jones, established both the Stegner Fellowships and Jones Lectureships.

The Fellowships were monetary grants for the students and the Lectureships funded short-term teaching appointments that the Stegner fellows could apply for. Over time the short-term appointments morphed into long-term positions.

A Stanford working group

decided to restore the intent of the Jones lectureship and give new Stegner Fellows “the opportunity to apply to be Jones Lecturers once they have completed their fellowships,” [Dean of School of Humanities and Sciences Debra] Satz said in her letter...

The new appointments will be one year “with the possibility of renewal for up to four more years.”

Undoubtedly there are some excellent instructors who have been let go, but I applaud Stanford for forcing new blood into the lectureships, but more importantly "restor[ing] the intent of the Jones lectureship." Too often we have seen donors' wishes being disregarded, and it's a sign to future donors that Stanford will abide by their instructions as best it can.

Donald Kagan, 1932-2021

Donald Kagan (Yale Daily News photo)

We noted his retirement eight years ago. Donald Kagan, 89, passed away earlier this month.

Kagan, who came to Yale in 1969, was a distinguished scholar of Ancient Greek history. His monumental four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War (1969–1987) was characterized by George Steiner as “the foremost work of history produced in North America in the 20th century”....

From his first years at Yale, Kagan was heralded as a dynamic and influential teacher, a galvanizing presence whose lectures on Ancient Greek history, delivered with eloquence, dry wit, and deadpan humor, filled classrooms to overflowing, despite his strict grading policies. The Socratic dialogue of his seminars made entry into one of them a winning lottery ticket for aspirants.

In 1970, without knowing what I was getting into—-how much can one find out from a brochure?—I signed up for Directed Studies, an integrated liberal arts program that immersed freshmen in the Western canon. First year Literature, Art, Philosophy, and European History courses all began with the pre-Socratic Greeks and ended before World War I.

Having joined the faculty the previous year, Donald Kagan already was one of the rock stars of Directed Studies, and his 90-minute lectures were organized, incisive, and chock full of information. (By the way, he had a slight speech impediment that I only mention because he was the first really smart person that I knew who had one.)

Though I eventually majored in Finance in graduate school and received a CPA, 1970-71 was the most intense and interesting educational year I ever had, and Professor Kagan had a lot to do with it.

No "Yes, But's" Allowed

At Northeastern University computer-science majors are required to take a course in theater and improv.

(GIPHY Image)

The course requires public speaking, lecturing on such nontechnical topics as family recipes. Students also learn to speak gibberish—“butuga dubuka manala phuthusa,” for instance.

The class is a way to “robot-proof” computer-science majors, helping them sharpen uniquely human skills, said Joseph E. Aoun, the university president

All the world's a stage, nerds, so you'd better get used to it.

As for liberal arts majors, laugh it up, fuzzballs, but a little science, technology, engineering, and math will get you on the good side of our future robot masters.

Oh, the Humanities

(WSJ illustration by Loris Lara)

American poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch advises:

Stop Worrying About the ‘Death’ of the Humanities.

These worries apparently "stem" from the decline in the number of humanities majors and the concomitant rise in enrollment in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

Mr. Kirsch's argument is that the university is the wrong place to gauge the health of, and interest in, the humanities.

The real action takes place outside the classroom, in theaters, concert halls, art galleries and libraries, or simply in the living rooms where people read and think. Being a successful literature or history or art major requires different skills than the ones needed to make these things a part of one’s actual inner life. Students are judged by what they can readily articulate, but in life, it is what we don’t know how to express that draws us to read, think, listen to music or look at art.

When the university comes to be seen as the sole custodian of the humanities, both the humanities and the university suffer. Most scholarship in the humanities is directed solely to other scholars and has little or no effect on the culture at large...

Certainly there is a hunger in the U.S. for engagement with ideas and culture that isn’t mediated by universities. The Center for Fiction recently opened a beautiful new headquarters in Brooklyn, where it houses readings, workshops and a massive library; the Poetry Foundation does the same for verse in its home in Chicago. The NEA’s Big Read program, which encourages cities and communities to read and discuss a chosen book, has attracted almost five million people to its events since its launch in 2005. And the past decade has seen the emergence of several important intellectual journals, from Jacobin on the left to American Affairs on the right, which keep alive the tradition of the independent “little magazine.”

But the habit of seeing universities as the main or even sole custodians of humanistic culture isn’t just inaccurate; it is bad for universities themselves. When we consider the university the only place where society can explicitly formulate its visions of truth, beauty and justice, it’s no wonder that campuses become fierce ideological battlegrounds—for students, faculty and outside observers alike.

The History and Political Thought reading
list hasn't changed much (click to enlarge)

When humanities courses are not "ideological battlegrounds", they can make for a rewarding educational experience.

Your humble blogger, a social sciences major, regards his freshman acceptance into a coordinated humanities program to be the best decision he made in college. Philosophy, Art, History, and Literature had parallel curricula, all starting with the ancient Greeks and ending in the 19th century (e.g, Nietzsche, Impressionism, Metternich--Literature was the exception because the professor insisted on covering Waiting for Godot).

Being in a rush to graduate in less than four years, I exited the program in favor of courses that imparted more useful knowledge.

Only later did I come to understand that what is useful is not necessarily important.