The Tripod

[Editor's Note: Alex Champoux and Sarah Khuwaja are members of the Writing Center.]

Around this time last year, President James F. Jones Jr. informed the campus that, due to the economy, we had sustained a considerable hit to our campus endowment. Since then the ripples have been felt throughout the College, and everything from printing dollars to Presidential Scholars have been threatened by the economic downturn. However, students have never had their educational rights and privileges threatened so much as now. In the past few weeks, several students have become aware of potential sweeping cuts in non-tenured faculty and staff. Although this is intended to be a College-wide purge, something that will affect every department, we are more concerned with several specific professors who may be cut and the effect it might have on our lives and the mission of the college.

In the Trinity College First- Year and undergraduate program, the writing intensive requirement is considered of paramount importance to the development of critical thought. As a result, the College has developed several programs to support student writing: Writing 101, the First-Year Program and, most importantly, the Writing Center. Whereas Writing 101 and the First-Year Program provide students with more generalized writing help teaching students how to craft a rudimentary essay, the Writing Center, run by a highly trained team of students and faculty, provides a more customized and intimate learning environment. In the instances where mentors, TAs, and professors are unsuccessful in conveying the basics of grammar, form, and thought organization, the Writing Center is there to provide qualified tutors and high-level instruction.

It is the very professors (nominally demoted by the administration to "staff," as opposed to "faculty") who help to run the Writing Center and train prospective tutors who could be facing the chop. Rumor has it that Professor Irene Papoulis and Professor Robert Peltier, principal lecturers in the Allen K. Smith Center for Writing and Rhetoric, and potentially other writing professors, are facing elimination at the end of this academic year. While this could be seen simply as cost-cutting measures to help the College, there are some greater implications in these terminations. Should these professors be fired, the Writing Center would be left without the instructors who help to train new tutors - both in terms of writing skills, teaching methods and ethics. Not so surprisingly, the elimination of these professors by the College would also remove the only remaining opposition to a consolidation of the Writing Center, Math Center, and Mentor programs - something that the College has been looking forward to for some time now.

As marginal as this might seem, the elimination of these professors shows a clear de-emphasizing of the writing intensive requirement that the College claims to hold so dear. Unlike other tenured professors who specialize solely in the English Department, the Writing Center faculty (deliberately non-tenured, it would seem) make up the backbone of cross-discipline writing instruction. Papoulis and Peltier both teach a cross-curricular method of writing instruction, ensuring that Writing Associates are completely prepared to deal with students from every discipline. Even further, Papoulis is integrally involved in the First-Year program, as she lectures on writing at bimonthly Mentor Colloquiums. These Allen K. Smith "lecturers" work tirelessly to promote quality writing amongst the students, fighting for the periodical re-upping of their contracts.

Students are fighting, too. Several petitions have been circulating in an attempt to preserve the writing professors' jobs, and the SGA is also showing concern over the possibility of losing part of our most valuable resource: our professors. By making these cuts, Trinity College may save some money, but without the professors who inspire and guide the young minds of Trinity students, our college experience will be effectively hobbled.

The College seems steadfast in its commitment to dismiss these professors, regardless of student outrage. If the College can ignore its students and ignore its own mission statement that "the ability to communicate clearly, coherently, and effectively in writing and in speech is one of the most important faculties and facilities that we can cultivate in our students," then how can we trust them to operate in the best interests of the campus community? It is for this reason that we call for a vehement voicing of campus outrage. If, like us, you sense the inherent danger in sweeping faculty purges without campus consent, please sign our petitions (specific to Allen K. Smith professors) which can be found in Peter B's, the Cave, and the Mather Hall dining area, or contact the Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Rena Fraden with your concerns.

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