On Confidentiality—Hamilton College, Part 3

Amen! Score one for common sense and pragmatism.

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Here is a secret video reportedly made during university administrator meeting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip1laBMkxec

I’ve blogged on this Hamilton issue on Part 2. At that time, I had now idea of the existence of Dean Joseph Urgo’s essay in Symploke in 2005.Even if the people Dean Joseph Urgo describes in his 2005 essay were not immediately identifiable to readers, the university where he was chair of English certainly was easily available and identifiable. And in this essay we are given a far more detailed public description of a confidential tenure decision in that Department than anything Professor Paquette has published about Hamilton.That Dean Urgo, having written that essay in 2005, would now in 2010 publicly punish Paquette severely for an alleged violation of “confidentiality”, is stunning. Paquette did far less than Urgo did. It’s hypocrisy on Urgo’s part–of course. But it now also increases suspicion in my own thinking of a coverup at Hamilton, and an attempt to enforce a code of omerta, publicly and severely, in order to maintain that coverup.

Even assuming that the passage from Urgo’s essay is an accurate description of a single, identifiable tenure review, nobody who was not in the room at the time is likely to be able to identify either the (apparently successful) candidate or the committee members. This discussion is getting a bit overheated.

Now we know what Paquette did wrong. He didn’t invoke the Law and Order disclaimer: “Although inspired in part by a true incident, the following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event.” If only he had said that his account was “not wholly factual” but “aggregate representations of an idea” he could have written anything he wanted about tales from the inner sanctum of his department.Instead of being banished from departmental searches, perhaps Paquette should have been ordered to sit through the next Law and Order Marathon.

Yes, thanks for the clarification. That bolsters my latest comment on Chapter 2.

Like Penny Roxbury, I have been unable to access the Symploke piece in its entirety. Where and how is the Urgo disclaimer located? Is it up front? Is it tucked away? In reading the couple of paragraphs available on-line, my sense is that Urgo was wrting an essay his audience would believe was factual, non-fiction, not faction.You do have to love the disclaimer, a great line for a business contract. I’ll try it one of these days and see if it passes muster with the lawyers.”In this and in all subsequent anecdotes, I have combined and rearranged actual events to protect the privacy of the real persons involved. None of the anecdotes are wholly factual, but each considered an aggregate representation of an idea.” It seems that Urgo as Dean ran an entire operation that was “never wholly factual.” Now one could guess some might take offense to this disclaimer.If it is in fine-print, wouldn’t that be considered a bit shady in the scholarly world? Can the academics who have read the article please respond?

It may well be that Urgo acted hypocritically here–but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he made the wrong decision. In any case, the lack of parallels between the Urgo article and the Paquette article are significant:(1) Urgo didn’t name anyone; Paquette did(2) Urgo was more or less inventing a scenario to make a point; Paquette was claiming to present a historical event accurately(3) Urgo was trying to make a general point about the way academia should operate; Paquette was trying to criticize particular colleagues in a public venue.As for Hamilton’s “use and discard” policy: we’d need to know a lot more than we currently know in order to make a judgment here. It seems bizarre that people on this list–people who have not seen Chris Hill’s CV, who have not seen his teaching evaluations, who know nothing about the way he interacted with his students or with the institution or with his department–are ready to jump to conclusions about how he should have been judged by a search committee that had all those facts at its disposal.From what he has written, Paquette seems to have an animus against Hamilton. That may be well deserved, but we should all be ready to take his claims of fact with a grain of salt.

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in saying that Urgo was “more or less inventing a scenario,” Pinsk, I think you alter the wording of the footnote overmuch. Note the phrasing “combined and rearranged” and “not wholly factual.” Also, in the online version of the article, the footnote was not connected to the tenure meeting cited. That said, you are certainly right that I should have spotted the note earlier.As for Hill’s teaching record, there is abundant evidence that he was a superb teacher at Hamilton. Nobody disputes that.

Mr. Pinsk,1. “Urgo didn’t name anyone; Paquette did.”Who did Paquette name besides Hill? 2. “Urgo was more or less inventing a scenario to make a point; Paquette was claiming to present a historical event accurately.”Did not a majority vote against Hill? Is not that accurate as well as obvious? Was not Hill bounced at the beginning? Is not that accurate and was not that previously a matter of public information? Are you saying that Professor Hill has no right to make the decison against him once he was informed?3. “Paquette was trying to criticize particular colleagues in a public venue.”Name the particular colleagues Paquette publicly criticized, Pinsk? One suspects that on campus they outed themselves.The argument about Paquette wildly imputing motives to those who voted against Hill, whose motives because they are PhDs must, of course, be as pure as the driven snow, is silly. Yes, minds are tough to read, but behavior over time provides evidence. Suppose members of the majority in their deliberations judged Hill by one standard and other candidates whom they liked by another? Suppose a professor who had published little or nothing and had emphasized teaching in one case, now shifted to a different standard in Hill’s case? One can see in discussing these and other matters pertaining to deliberations how confidentialiy can protect scoundrels.I do encourage Professor Paquette to tell us more.

Pinsk? Slutsk? Must be a Soviet blogger.

Any and all hiring, reappointment, tenure and promotion meetings should be open to the public and their proceedings preserved as part of the public record–too often are “confidentiality” rules a smokescreen for poor behavior on the part of cliquey departmental deadwood in their vain attempts to maintain a reptilian status quo. There should be no secrets in academia.

Roxbury 86:I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree about this issue. If there were breaches of confidentiality, Urgo’s seems much worse than Paquette’s. The paragraph cited by Bauerlein is only a small part of his “aggregate representations of an idea” (not fiction but “combined and rearranged events”). It also contains a very unflattering portrait of the young woman who was not reappointed. Paquette’s alleged breach– the only one cited in Dean Urgo’s letter, I gather– was re-reporting that a majority had not advanced the candidacy of Professor Hill. And instead of hiding behind the artifice of the Modified Law and Order Disclaimer (This essay is not fictional but neither is it wholly factual.), Paquette manned up to his criticisms.I’m not in a position to judge the ends and means of either Urgo or Paquette. And like Bauerlein, I don’t believe that the decloistering of academia is the end of world.Have a good day.P-libby.

Hmmm.

HmmmSlutsk: in re #24: surely you are not suggesting that Minsk is Paquette himself? That could hardly be, for the following reasons:(a) Paquette is a solid historian, with a well publicized concern for truth and accuracy, without cant and ideology. He would not write puff pieces about himself. Yet Minsk does write puff pieces about Paquette. In a response to the first of Bauerlein’s essays, Minsk wrote, “By the way, … I too have met Professor Paquette, at one of his annual colloquia. Yes, he is intense and serious, but also persuasive and compelling… Why not ask some of the students who connect with the Institute about him, Ms. Dana. I sat at a lunch table with an April event. They raved about him…” Sorry, that’s not the way a serious historian writes about himself. Ergo (or is it Urgo?), Minsk cannot be Paquette.(b) Paquette is a much-publicized scholar, with tremendous research skills. Surely, he would not write, “I have been unable to access the symploke piece in its entirety,” since he could easily access it through Hamilton’s library website, as Ted Eismeier apparently did. Therefore, Minsk cannot be Paquette; in fact, Minsk cannot be an academic historian.Mark: you say, “There is abundant evidence that [Hill] was a superb teacher at Hamilton. Nobody disputes that.” It may well be the case that Hill was an excellent teacher, but can you please cite just some of that “abundant evidence”? Paquette asserts this, but no one else with direct knowledge has entered this conversation, either to confirm or to dispute it.

Pinsk:Excellent *literary* detective work. But back to questions raised by your earlier posts:1. Would Paquette have avoided violating the code of omerta if he had tailored his essay to follow the modified, limited postmodern hangout of quasi-facts employed in symploke?2. In the age of the internet, why do academics get their pants in a bunch over the secrets of the temple becoming not so secret? Seems not to fit the academy’s generally progressive worldview.How about joining me in asking the new dean to parole Paquette and hold a beer summit?P-libby

Part 3 says, “with one paragraph recounting a distressing tenure case…” Now that we have the disclaimer, it appears that this recounting is not one case in particular, but a mixture of perhaps several. That makes a big difference. Keeping aside for the moment that I believe the Urgo example differs greatly from the Paquette example even WITHOUT the disclaimer, WITH it it seems to bolster my point of view. WITHOUT the disclaimer, those who believed the Urgo article to be on par with the Paquette article, might now, as indicated in #30, consider that a softening. However you look at it, the absence of the disclaimer skews the interpretation of the reader; hence, the Sherrod analogy (in which case, the video was edited to achieve a desired effect).I’m not trotting off to the library to read Symploke; and as indicated multiple times before, I don’t work in academia. Yes, P-Libby, I suppose we should agree to disagree. I believe Minsk to be one of the HCAGR guys – just conjecture on my part.

From your response, roxbury, I presume that you have never served on a search committee, never attended a committee or department meeting, and never had first-hand experience with academic confidentiality matters. I am not sure what your “point of view” about this matter is. Do you believe that Paquette violated the confidentiality code? If so, do you believe that the punishment is warranted, particularly the placement of Paquette’s reinstatement not in in own hands but in the hands of colleagues?

My pov is that the Paquette article was inappropriate and that the Urgo piece was: 1) completely different; and 2) once the disclaimer was included, that made the distinction between the two cases even clearer. (I did not mean to imply that the late inclusion of the disclaimer was an intentional act to influence readers’ impressions; only that the later inclusion seemed to have that effect.)About the consequences to Prof. Paquette, I do not have an opinion; it seems to me that should be left to those in charge, who should be possessed of all the facts as well as policy.This is the opinion of one who is not in academia, and who knows no more facts about this instance than those presented in these three postings. I will say, though, that the pattern of sounding off publicly would not be tolerated in the business sector.

There’s a chain of command in every business; and I do believe whistleblowing – real whistleblowing – should be protected.

Sorry: I pushed the button too soon:There are a few fundamental question here, hinted at by Pinsk, roxbury, and others, but never fully articulated. Everyone here is making judgments based on Robert Paquette’s version of the story. It is not even clear that Bauerlein has seen the entirety of the e-mail that Joseph Urgo sent to Professor Paquette. President Urgo has apparently decided not to engage in this discussion. But how about everyone else? It is not clear that other parties to the transaction (including the other members of the history department at Hamilton) even know about this conversation, or whether they are refraining from contributing because they know Professor Paquette is right, or whether they are refraining because they have a stronger committment to confidentiality than he does, or whether they are refraining from participating for some other reason. Whatever the reason, NO ONE WITH KNOWLEDGE OF THE PARTICULARS, other than Professor Paquette, HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE CONVERSATION.So here are my questions: do we know that the “punishment” was entirely the result of this article? Is it possible that Professor Paquette engaged in other behavior deemed unprofessional by the Dean? do we know whether the rest of the department supported the Dean in this? do we know whether the faculty senate at Hamilton has a position on this case?Without more hard evidence from some source other than Professor Paquette, it seems pointless to try to determine who is in the right here.

Re #43:Sometimes you can’t have both “chain of command” and protection of whistleblowing. The chain of command can go up and up and up: “No whistleblowing until the Dean weighs in,” then “no whistleblowing until the Provost weighs in,” then “no whistleblowing until the President weighs in,” then “no whistleblowing until the Board of Trustees weighs in.” And the chain of command can delay, obfuscate, bury matters in technicalities as long as it likes to keep somebody who’s obeying the chain of command silent as long as it likes.And whistleblowing, remember, doesn’t decide anything; it just sounds a whistle and suddenly people turn around and ask, “What’s going on here?” With a lot of people, me being one of them, instant suspicion accrues to the parties who object to people asking, “What’s going on here?” What one wonders, are they afraid of? “Oh, we’re not afraid of anything being found out, we just object to the breach of confidentiality, on not going through the chain of command,” somehow just doesn’t cut it as an excuse. Re #45:”Do we know that the punishment’ was entirely the result of this article? Is it possible that Professor Paquette engaged in other behavior deemed unprofessional by the Dean?”* Prof. Bauerlein’s first post on the Hamilton situation makes it very clear with direct quotations that Prof. Paquette’s alleged breach of “confidentiality” caused Dean Urgo to banish him from future searches “until and unless” Prof. Paquette’s colleagues deem him reformed. Of course, that might not be the only reason for Prof. Paquette’s banishment. But what other “unprofessional behavior” would merit Prof. Paquette being barred from search committees? If there is other “unprofessional behavior” unrelated to the Prof. Hill situation and Dean Urgo is using banning Prof. Paquette from searches as a convenient punishment for it, then that is quite unprofessional on the part of Dean Urgo. “Oh, by the way, Prof. Paquette, you’ve been yelling in the classroom lately, so that’s another reason why I’m keeping you off search committees.” Please.* “NO ONE WITH KNOWLEDGE OF THE PARTICULARS, other than Professor Paquette, HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE CONVERSATION.”* That’s because the particulars are…[drum roll]…CONFIDENTIAL! (Again, quelle convenient.)”Do we know whether the rest of the department supported the Dean in this? Do we know whether the faculty senate at Hamilton has a position on this case?”* These are both irrelevant to whether or not Prof. Paquette was done an injustice by Dean Urgo. The majority of the search committee did not deign to shortlist Prof. Hill; does that mean in and of itself that Prof. Hill was not done an injustice?

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I was looking up the photography of Horst Fass when I had an epiphany regarding the context of this discussion, and that is the greater context of how far the freedom of information has fallen in the USA. This was brought to my attention when I located this site of Vietnam era photographs that includes the work of Fass: http://blogs.tampabay.com/photo/2010/04/the-vietnam-war-ended-on-april-30-1975-23-images.htmlRecently, the “Iraq War” has lasted in time for more than twice the duration of World War II, yet American citizens are denied the work of photojournalists pertinent to this war for the simple reason that they are not allowed to attend. The embedded media from FoxNews and CNN is not jounrnalism, it is certainly not photojournalism, it is information propaganda the like of a highly technical communist enterprise. In the context of Fass’s work, Americans could not identify Iraq from Arizona or Utah, they are denied this visual information in a time of saturation propaganda when instead the citizens get the image of a green illuminated target screen from inside the cockpit of a fighter jet from the “coward of the skies” with their remote bombing. “Fighter jet” with no one to fight, assymetrical warfare.In the context of university admininistration, a group that in the past two decades has collectively put tens of billions of dollars of personal debt onto working US citizens, I think of university administrators with two qualities: having very narrow interests, and being very controlling. It is a sort of country club mentality, where the good life will be rationed for members of the club and every other surrounding activity, in other words, their spere of governance, shall be made to fit the club priority. The topic of renewal is both pertinent and distant. Maybe Mr. Paquette should write an independent work, a treatise, on if he was running a university and how he would do it.p_e

The “rationing” motif was brought to be fore by a recent article about the American Red Cross and the donation money for Haiti. They are sitting on this money and not building anything and not paying it out. What they are doing instead is paying Haitans $2./day to move stones and rubble by hand. I suggest there is an administrative culture in the USA that is “conservative” to point of having lost their mission, unless their mission is to tend their own private garden. Recently I have been reviewing graduate programs and I am struck by the preponderance of scripted programs that allow little or no time and money spent researching concepts outside of very narrow directive channels. It is completely stunning if you look into it and the bizarre mission statements of some departments, like they are running kindergartens and telling people what to do. Certainly there are universities who have opportunity outside of this narrow channeling, but these are few. It is a time of directive notions and the directors… (insert your own thought concerning relevance).

#52. ha, I read that as “Everyman Chainsaw.” What would you suggest, as a means of essay journalism? Where would you go if you had/have the essay opportunity of Mr. Bauerlein?I am not in agreement with you that he should be trimming limbs on his own campus. That would just be bad form, like being in London and telling someone how much you like the Louvre. For any number of reasons, it would be a faux-pas. But it is a serious question, what would you essay on? Is there anything important to you?PS Be careful buying the higher-voltage cordless tools, the batteries only last a couple of years and the battery replacement cost is in the hundreds. Keep a power cord on your everyman saws.

Roxbury, thank you.

Re #50:”[Sometimes not being have to have both protection of whistleblowing and chain of command] presumes that the entire chain of command is operating with the intention of NOT getting to the heart of the matter, with disingenuousness throughout.”* No, it merely assumes that while the chain of command “get[s] to the heart of the matter,” it wants everbody concerned to be silent.”They owe this blog no obligation to tell the tale publicly.”* Right. And this blog owes them no backing off the matter because they won’t tell the table publicly. Again, the likes of, “We could rebut all this if we wanted to, but our lips are sealed,” doesn’t exactly reinforce credibility.”That the majority of the search committee did not shortlist Prof. Hill does not mean, ipso facto, that Prof. Hill was done an injustice.”* Right, but that wasn’t my point to standard_deviation. My point was: Just as a majority of the committee being against Prof. Hill’s shortlisting doesn’t prove he was NOT done an injustice, the rest of the department faculty and/or the Hamilton Faculty Senate (possibly) supporting the Dean’s punishment wouldn’t prove that Prof. Paquette was NOT done an injustice, either. Prof. Hill was hired on a term appointment to teach a particular course at an SLAC where teaching is the first priority for faculty. His teaching was so good that enrollment in that course went way up. The department then decided to change a tenure-track appointment to the area of Prof. Hill’s course. The department then decided not to shortlist Prof. Hill, a fish-out-of-water libertarian politically. A reasonable preliminary conclusion from these facts is that Prof. Hill was done an injustice. Not that he should have gotten the TT appointment, mind you, but that he should have at least shortlisted. Why was he not at least shortlisted? The reasons are conveniently…CONFIDENTIAL!”If you are not trusting the chain of command, then only Prof. Paquette’s point of view is left to you.” * And whose fault is that? I’d say it’s the chain of command, in involing “confidentiality.” And why on Earth would anybody blindly trust the chain of command in the absence of any information forthcoming from said chain of command? If there’s one thing a college education, especially at an SLAC, teaches one, it’s never blindly to trust a chain of command.”If you are a concerned stakeholder at Hamilton in some way, then perhaps a quiet conversation might be informative.”* I can’t decide whether this is what’s called pablum or what’s called a bromide. I’m sure “a concerned stakeholder at Hamilton” (roxbury86, or Prof. Paquette, or both?) would find a “quiet conversation” (with whom?) “informative.” But funny how it’s often only blowing the whistle that gets one invited to have those “quiet conversations,” presumably with the chain of command.Also funny (both ha-ha and peculiar) about cover-ups and retaliations against whistleblowers: The more the chain of command and its sympathizers try to defend them, the more critical attention it draws. Prof. Bauerlein’s three posts have generated almost 200 comments (some from people like me, who ordinarily oppose Prof. Bauerlein’s views) and, most likely, a proportionately large number of readers. The more readers and commenters–one would reasonably surmise–the worse it looks for Hamilton. (I’m not sure, but this kind of phenomenon might be known as Nixon’s Law.)

Pat Tillmans’s mother speaks, “The truth shines a light on systematic corruption, incompetence and lack of accountability.”http://freedomsyndicate.com/fair0000/latimes00287.htmlThe commentary evidences a systemic culture of half-truths and rationed information. I connect this to university because most universities have an ego-identity of being powerful and tend to gravitate “upwards” in modeling the power structure. Confucious said that the people will model the actions of the ruler. Honest rulers, no crime. Corrupted rulers, and then the lower caste thinks “that is how it is done.”In the humanities, there is little dogmatic true/false, right/wrong. I think everyone should be themselves instead of this scripted role playing. Paquette should be the wild card and shout it from the rooftops. Urgo should be allowed his phoney control letter, so what. Who governs the two? Can they work it out? Too bad in academia you can not just put someone in the local court, like a property dispute. Here is the court of public opinion.PS Article says Tillman’s mum has a documentary coming out August 20th.

goxewu,* “No, it merely assumes that while the chain of command “get[s] to the heart of the matter,” it wants everbody concerned to be silent.”Obviously, you disagree, but I think that silence is good idea. Does the public have a right to know the blow-by-blow internal workings of any private organization?* ‘”We could rebut all this if we wanted to, but our lips are sealed,” doesn’t exactly reinforce credibility’.In general, sometimes silence is the most considerate approach, for all concerned.* “Just as a majority of the committee being against Prof. Hill’s shortlisting doesn’t prove he was NOT done an injustice, the rest of the department faculty and/or the Hamilton Faculty Senate (possibly) supporting the Dean’s punishment wouldn’t prove that Prof. Paquette was NOT done an injustice, either.”True – we don’t know what we don’t know.* “And whose fault is that? I’d say it’s the chain of command, in involing “confidentiality.” I’m not suggesting that anyone blindly trust anyone. * pablum/bromide?Quiet conversation works, and it has worked at Hamilton. It is very effective. I know firsthand.* About the postings and fallout…I think the biggest beneficiary is Mr. Bauerlein, however without Prof. Paquette’s many postings, we wouldn’t have this or any of the other provocative columns that have made their way to the internet. One hand washes the other. From # 12 posting on Part 1 (mine): “Frankly, I would love Mr. Bauerlein’s job – writing a column that can provide a platform for my friends who have an axe to grind. I am disappointed that the Chronicle published such a one-sided piece.” I guess the buck stops with the Chronicle.

You mention my giving a “platform for my friends,” roxbury. Did you miss my offering of the entire page to people at Hamilton who would like to weigh in, correct errors, add more information . . . (along with my promise not to comment upon it)?

Professor Hill, UPS has profit sharing for employees, but there is a lot of hustle involved. Can you wear shorts and sprint up and down driveways?p_e

PS In William Faulkner’s grueling novel, “Light in August,” I thought the best part was when the locals fired the preacher, who lived one block away from the church. It turns out he had a small private sum, so that is where he lived, not leaving as the church intended.That was then. Today, an individual who had suffered the ban-hammer would be in their air-conditioned car, driving by the campus from a distant road. There would be little interaction if one was to stay in locale, phone calls not returned, shut-out of communications with those who former called one “colleague.”

p_e: I wish him the best. If he as talented as has been said, I think he will land on his feet – I do hope so.

A question for you, senecan. Do you believe that Paquette’s essay broke confidentiality policy, and do you believe that the punishment was warranted?

Mark – I’ve repeatedly written that Dean Urgo’s response, as detailed in the quotations you provided, seems inappropriate. Frankly, I can’t imagine Hamilton’s lawyers approving that punishment, nor can I imagine Hamilton’s administration being able to enforce it, always assuming that Professor Paquette’s account is accurate. I understand that you would like your readers to focus only on the question in your last post. Unfortunately, the Paquette essay raises other questions. Can you explain why you accept his claims despite the absence of evidence? And do you think it appropriate for him to accuse his colleagues of bias, given that he was not privy to the search committee deliberations? The language in his own essay (“undoubtedly…probably,” for example) implies that his claims are based on his own assumptions (biases?) rather than factual knowledge. – Robert Dimit

senecan:Aren’t these two very different questions? Readers of Paquette’s essay can form their own judgments about the merits, evidence, and appropriateness of his essay. The issue raised by Bauerlein was whether Paquette should have been punished (with the power to end the punishment outsourced to Paquette’s department)by Dean Urgo for simply re-reporting that a majority of his department had not advanced the candidacy of Professor Hill and then criticizing that decision. I take it that on this issue your answer is “no.” Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

goxewu, you know very well that I know what “the buck stops here” means. To spell it out for you, it means that it is the Chronicle’s responsibility – for crying out loud. It was intended that way. Their piece falls far short of the piece in Inside Higher Ed; had an editor looked at it prior to hitting the internet, the obvious slant might have been rounded out. Talk about sniping.

Paleoliberal – Yes, you have understood me correctly. And they are two separate questions.PE2 – Academic search committees are expected to follow their department’s and school’s procedures, which are expected to conform to professional norms. Those norms exist to promote fairness and to ensure that searches will result in appropriate hires (i.e., of the best applicants). Despite the dire legalistic and political language invoked here, no evidence has been presented to show that the Hamilton committee did anything wrong.Robert Dimit

p_e:There isn’t anything substantial in the 3 posts that did not come from Prof. Paquette (other than the Symploke quotes). In the absence of SOMETHING from the other parties, one would have hoped that at least, someone removed from the situation who, e.g., who has expertise in this area, might have been asked to weigh in based on the available information.I don’t want pasteurization, but really this – part 1 in particular, part 2 prior to the addition of the disclaimer – reads like a string of allegations, supported with quotations, offered without any context whatsoever. The topic seems to me to be pretty serious; one Prof. leaving, another censured. This isn’t just a fun filler article.

You wonder, senecan, why I “accept Paquette’s claims,” but I have stated here that the claims Paquette made in his essay may be erroneous. My point all along has been focused on the section of Paquette’s essay singled out by the Dean as a violation and the punishment meted out.And roxbury, in #83, you are flatly wrong. You say that nothing “substantial” in my posts comes from any other source but Paquette, other than the Symploke essay. Read Post #1 again. The main item there is Urgo’s letter of reprimand to Paquette, quoted at length. This document is the springboard for this whole discussion. How can you call Post #1, with its extensive quotations from that letter, “a string of allegations, supported with quotations, offered without any context whatsoever”?

Re #76:* Of course there’s no “law” requiring search committees to interview inside candidates. But–and I’m going to refrain from trotting out my bona fides concerning academic search committees; suffice it to say that I’ve been on them, chaired them, and dealt with them as a department chair in schools the level of Prof. Dimit’s–it’s usually done as at least a courtesy…especially when the inside candidate has done all the good things teaching that Prof. Hill did in his four years at Hamilton.* In #74, I pointed out six obvious facts concerning Prof. Hill at Hamilton. Prof. Dimit chooses to ignore all but the final two, and then assert that I (and Prof. Bauerlein and Prof. Paquette) are saying what we say based on only those two. * What I said is not a textbook example of pro hoc ergo propter hoc. I didn’t simply say–nor did Prof. Bauerlein nor did Prof. Paquette–”Professor Hill is politically conservative; Hamilton fired Professor Hill; therefore Prof. Hill’s being conservative caused Hamilton to fire him.” I said that Hamilton hired Prof. Hill to teach a course in Medieval History, that Prof. Hill was an excellent teacher, that he caused a big enrollment increase in that course, that Prof. Hill was good enough to have been hired by Hamilton in the first place and kept on for four years, that the department decided to change their TT apointment from French History to Medieval History, and that IN SPITE OF THOSE THINGS, the department WOULDN’T EVEN GIVE PROF. HILL AN INTERVIEW. What’s left as reasons not even to interview the man? Some great lack in publications at an SLAC that supposedly puts teaching first? (But not great enough a lack to prevent the department from hiring him and keeping him around for four years to begin with.) Oh yes, there are POSSIBLE other bad things which, I’d bet, come under the all-purpose rubric of “collegiality.” (Translation: “You’re a libertarian and we’re not, so it’s not ‘collegial’ having you around.)Re #79:* I don’t need the meaning of “The buck stops here” spelled out. T’weren’t I who misused it. And I’m not impressed by roxbury86–after plenty of time to Google Wikipedia–coming up with a definition.* Prof. Bauerlein’s blog post #1 was not a news story. It was an op-ed piece. Of course it had a “slant.”Re #80:There’s a prima facie case–i.e., some inconvenient facts in a chain of events that need explaining–that the Hamilton search committee acted in bad faith concerning Prof. Hill. Again: He wasn’t even granted an interview. OK, where’s the explanation? “Sorry, we can’t give one, because the explanation is…CONFIDENTIAL!”Re #83: “The topic seems to me to be pretty serious; one Prof. leaving, another censured.”* But not serious enough for any explanation forthcoming from that good ol’ Hamilton chain of command because it’s all very…CONFIDENTIAL!Re #85:I disagree with Prof. Bauerlein on “Brainstorm” the majority of the time. But I’ll give him this: The man can certainly keep his cool in calmly swatting away the “flatly wrong[s]” that keep coming at him. He must feel, though, like he’s trapped in a George Romero movie.

#87 – I’m glad you don’t, but you certainly didn’t seem to understand “the buck stops here” when I first used the expression. (I’ve even heard of Harry Truman). – “Op-ed piece”? Come now, the initial posting is written like “breaking news” and collectively the three were intended to be every bit as provocative as they are; for a more enlightened discussion, inclusion of some other information might have been in order. – If you are a blogger and post provocative material, you’ve got to expect some strong comments; if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. (No, I don’t need to google that one either.)

A point of information: Insidehighered did the story precisely because of the blog post here at the Chronicle, and I think they rightly extended the commentary by interviewing the people mentioned by roxbury.

Goxewu – “Pro hoc ergo propter hoc”? Can I merely say, “Whatever,” and let it go at that? – Robert Dimit

Point of information: The statement quoted above by PWD was erroneously reported by IHED to come from the Faculty Handbook. The statement is actually part of the Dean’s Guidelines to Department Chairs. The Faculty Handbook is a close as we come to a “contract,” the language of which must be approved by faculty and trustees. The Dean’s Guidelines have no such status.Interestingly, the Dean’s Guidelines say nothing about “the outcomes of votes” as being matters of strict confidentiality. As I read the offending essay, it included nothing about “discussions, conversations, and exchanges.” Even taken on its own terms, the dean’s decision was, to say the least, problematic. As a matter of common sense and political savvy, the decision was a real blunder.

Note, roxbury, that in my first post I reproduced in full the confidentiality policy cited there by the dean.

Re #98:Why on Earth would roxbury86 offer a link to a Hamilton student newspaper story in which the following is the salient paragraph about the Prof. Hill situation?”HILL HAS THE LARGEST NUMBER OF STUDENTS in the History Department along with Professor of History Douglas Ambrose, and arguably, HIS HIGH NUMBERS HELPED LAND THE DEPARTMENT TENURE LINE FOR HIS SPECIFIC FIELD within the department (as opposed to having the line move into another academic department). But when Hill applied for the tenure position, he did not make the first cut of applicants, meaning HE WOULD NOT GET THE CHANCE TO INTERVIEW FOR THE JOB. Hill’s second two-year term ends at the end of the semester, and he will not be back to teach next year.” [Emphases mine.]One appreciates roxbury86′s honesty, if that’s what it is.

On a different topic, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,710972,00.html“Germany’s super-rich have rejected an invitation by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to join their ‘Giving Pledge’ to give away most of their fortune. The pledge has been criticized in Germany, with millionaires saying donations shouldn’t replace duties that would be better carried out by the state.”