A Petition That Begs Condign Neglect

Not content to get their way, sophomoric thinkers demand to have their way with faculty.


Many faculty have expressed to me concern about a petition "crafted" by one or more Puget Sound students.  The faculty should not be concerned. One colleague got matters right when he said, "They're college students." That is, Spring Semester is always the silly season for students.  This silly season produced an uncommonly silly document.
     
The first published version of the petition was as laughable as some of my first drafts:

           

Petition for Transparency in Senate Faculty Vote

The faculty senate voted through Wednesday, April 9 on whether to accept the KNOW diversity overlay requirement. The measure passed by a vote of 123 to 88. We believe that this many professors voting against a diversity core overlay is unacceptable at a university claiming to be concerned about diversity and social justice. There is no excuse for the perpetuation of the old core requirements when so much of this campus remains exclusive to white, male, cisgender, heterosexual, upper middle-class students.

 

We demand transparency because:

1.      We are robbed of meaningful education when that education reflects only the standards and values of a hegemonic western culture. We believe that the professors who voted against the requirement must be held accountable for voting to perpetuate the unacceptable state of our curriculum prior to the introduction to the overlay requirement.

       

2.      We are not represented in this university’s governance structures when faculty who make decisions on the content of our curriculum are insulated from accountability for their votes that perpetuate an unacceptable educational program that considers critical analysis of power, social location, the construction of knowledge and identity a politically correct garnish rather than an integral part of a liberal arts education.

             

3.      We are irresponsible members of the campus community if we do not do everything we can to make this community more accessible to people from historically marginalized communities. Some of us are students from these communities who know that this university, despite its best efforts, continues to perpetuate social inequality. Faculty members who voted against the overlay requirement voted to uphold a curriculum that did not reflect the experience of students from historically marginalized communities and therefore perpetuated this social inequality.

         

We are not under any delusions that the overlay will resolve this campus’ failure to meaningfully address issues of diversity. But we think that it is less bad than where we were before. Any argument to the contrary is ridiculous because despite progress the university has made the state of our diversity efforts remain unacceptable because there are obviously members or groups within the administration and faculty resistant to change.

We therefore request the release of the names of all faculty who voted on the diversity overlay requirement and the names of those who abstained. Secrecy is antithetical to the democratic values of a liberal arts college and prevents students from engaging with the college administration and faculty. If the University of Puget Sound is serious about increasing diversity, we need to have a meaningful dialogue about what it means that eighty-eight faculty members voted against this requirement. Excuses for secrecy are not acceptable. We demand transparency.
 

My initial response to this initial petition was laughter.  The information in the petition was askew.  If we were to dignify the contents by calling them "arguments," the arguments in the petition were far from cogent.  The demand that became a request by petition's end could be met if someone provided the students with any document or website that lists all full-time faculty, for that would list all who voted or sustained.  I suspect the University of Puget Sound's Bulletin would suffice.  All the names are at 
   
<www.pugetsound.edu/files/resources/6782_Bulletin13-14_UG_WEB.pdf>.
     

          

<www.facebook.com/groups/1470043629893175/1470054679892070/> tidies the petition a bit, but it remains far from compelling [sic].  The petitioners are still undergraduates in an era after literacy. Rather than review the post-literate posturing, I suggest we continue to ignore the fatuous document.
    
Faculty who over-read the petition -- giving it a second glance, for example -- risk overreach.  Youths are entitled to tantrums.  Their naïve obstreperousness distresses me less than the disingenuousness of colleagues.