From the issue dated May 2, 2003
|
|
|
High Faculty Turnover Roils Fledgling Soka U.; Noted Historian at Rutgers Heads to NYUBy BETH MCMURTRIE and SCOTT SMALLWOODSTART-UP STRAINS: When Soka University of America opened its doors two years ago, new professors there heralded it as a city on a hill. Established by Soka Gakkai International, a Japanese lay Buddhist sect, it promised to be a truly democratic, nonsectarian liberal-arts college without the traditional trappings of rank and tenure. Today, about one-quarter of those original professors have left, with some arguing that Animal Farm is the more appropriate analogy for the Southern California institution. "For non-SGI members, anyone who can get out is getting out," says Joe McGinniss, 60, the best-selling author whose one-year contract as writer-in-residence was not renewed. Mr. McGinniss and other current and former faculty members portray Soka's administrators as secretive, top-down, and unwilling to respond to questions about ties to its founding organization. The critics say that Soka's promise of "continuous employment" is a sham, noting that one professor was fired against the recommendation of a faculty review committee. And they argue that members of Soka Gakkai are clearly favored, pointing out that many administrators belong to the sect, and charging that Soka Gakkai professors have fewer qualifications than their colleagues. In addition to the one professor who was fired, 5 of the original 19 faculty members have left or are leaving. "I decided there's clearly no academic freedom here," says Anne M. Houtman, 42, a biology professor who is going to California State University at Fullerton. Others say it's not that simple. A few professors, who asked not to be named, say that there are plenty of tensions on the campus, but that they result more from inexperienced administrators starting a new university than from an effort to push a Soka Gakkai agenda. Several blame the former dean of the faculty, Alfred Balitzer, 62, for what they say was a divisive leadership style, and are hoping his departure will calm the waters. He received a vote of no confidence last year by more than three-quarters of the faculty. Mr. Balitzer, who was asked to step down as dean earlier this year because of what he says was an "intemperate" e-mail message he sent to Mr. McGinniss, dismisses that criticism. Now on the Board of Trustees, he says that he was brought in to make sure the university opened on schedule, and that his decisiveness ruffled a few feathers. Michael Hays, the acting dean of the faculty, says that faculty discontent is vastly overstated. He says the relatively high turnover was to be expected, given that the original faculty members had never worked together and were assigned the stressful task of helping to establish a new college. He says charges of religious discrimination are false, noting that three-quarters of faculty members are non-Soka Gakkai, and that only one of 13 faculty members hired last year belongs to the sect. Mr. Hays says that people can, in fact, be fired for a range of reasons, just as at any other university. "Continuous employment" at Soka, it seems, really isn't too different from the rest of academe after all. *** SHORTENED COMMUTE: After 18 years at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, David Levering Lewis, the historian and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was looking for a new challenge as he neared retirement. He found it, and he doesn't even have to move from his Upper West Side home in Manhattan. In the fall, Mr. Lewis, 66, will take a university professorship at New York University. His wife, Ruth Ann Stewart, a research professor of urban policy at Rutgers, will also move to NYU, taking a post at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Mr. Lewis says his departure should not reflect poorly on Rutgers. "I spent 18 contented years at one place," he says, but had thought recently that a change of scenery might be nice. When NYU President John E. Sexton sounded him out, he was "delighted." Mr. Sexton says the historian "builds on NYU's existing strength in history, a department that already is very strong but which we plan to transform into a leading department." And, the president notes, Mr. Lewis will be kept busy. He'll teach a freshman seminar (his first time in an undergraduate class in several years) as well as finish work on his book about Islam in Spain in the eighth century. Mr. Lewis won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for the first volume of his biography of W.E.B. Du Bois. In 2001, he won another for the second volume. http://chronicle.com Section: Short Subjects Volume 49, Issue 34, Page A9
|
Copyright © 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education