From the issue dated January 30, 2004
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An Unwelcome HonorHow a professor lost control of his name and the program he ran for 32 years
In February, Nora K. Bell, the new president of Hollins University, used her inaugural speech to make a major announcement: Two anonymous donors had given a total of $2-million to create the university's first fully endowed chair in creative writing. The news was greeted with applause, as was the decision to name the position after one of the university's most beloved professors, Richard H.W. Dillard. Mr. Dillard, an English professor, has taught at Hollins, a private, liberal-arts college in Roanoke, Va., for 40 years. For 32 of those years, he has directed the graduate program in creative writing, which is generally recognized as one of the best such programs in the country. Well-known graduates include the prolific novelist and short-story writer Madison Smartt Bell and the Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Dillard, who is also Mr. Dillard's former wife. Colleagues describe him as a selfless and brilliant teacher who inspires extreme devotion in his students. He is also the author of two novels, a book of short stories, six books of poetry, and two critical works. He was, everyone seemed to agree, the perfect choice. There was one small problem: Mr. Dillard didn't want the honor. In fact, a few months after the announcement was made, he resigned from his position as director of creative writing to protest changes he felt had harmed the program he helped to build. He also requested that his name be removed from the professorship. To his surprise, the answer was no. Hollins was going to honor him, Mr. Dillard was told, whether he liked it or not. The story of what has happened behind the scenes at Hollins in recent months is too absurd to pass muster in a creative-writing workshop. Yet the emotions are real: anger, sadness, and plenty of tension. The creative-writing faculty is split, and professors on both sides say they have been mistreated. To add to the strain, someone made what appeared to be an oblique death threat. "I'll never write an academic novel," says Jeanne Larsen, who has been an English professor at Hollins for 24 years. "How could you ever top reality?" Shaking the Goose? The problems began last spring. That's when Mr. Dillard and some of his colleagues became convinced that the administration's motives regarding the graduate creative-writing program were not altogether altruistic. Faculty members had been told that the master-of-arts degree in creative writing would be changed to a master of fine arts. Instead of lasting one year, the program would last two. In the past, Hollins had charged about $2,500 a year in tuition (some students, depending on their financial needs, received full scholarships). Under the new plan, some students would receive hefty stipends while others could pay as much as $18,000 a year. This is nothing unusual in the world of graduate creative writing, but it was a major departure for a program that had always been thought of as different, and that had prided itself on not saddling students with big debts. Mr. Dillard wrote in his resignation letter in May that the change in tuition policy was "part of an effort to transform our nationally ranked and respected 'prestige' graduate program in creative writing into an 'entrepreneurial' (or 'moneymaker') graduate program. ..." In the same letter, he asked to have his name removed from the professorship. Some colleagues, like Ms. Larsen, agreed. She says the administration's attitude was "let's take the goose, shake it by the neck, and see if we can't get a few more eggs out of it." Not so, says Ms. Bell, the university's president. "It wasn't a financial move," she says. "It was an attempt to position Hollins at the next level for what we think we can do in creative writing." Pinckney Benedict, who took over directorship of the creative-writing program after Mr. Dillard resigned, sided with the president. They say the program had lost money for years and that charging more tuition will help it become self-supporting. Besides, Mr. Benedict says, the revenues will go directly to the department, not into the university's coffers. In addition, the size of the program will remain small, around a dozen students. "I've seen the numbers," he says, "and if it's supposed to be a cash cow, we're screwed." Because of his stance, and because he agreed to take the position after Mr. Dillard resigned, Mr. Benedict is not exactly Mr. Popular among some of his colleagues. In fact, some of them aren't speaking to him. What's more, he has received some awfully strange things in the mail in the last few months. One was an article about a rat. Another seemed to be part of a libretto that began with the line "Mussolini, Mussolini, he's a meanie ..." and went on to mention how the Italian dictator was hung upside-down in the streets. Some helpful person had drawn arrows to emphasize particular lines. Naturally, both letters were anonymous. The rat article was weird, Mr. Benedict thought, but the meaning was fairly clear. But Mussolini? Where had that come from? Then he remembered joking not long before in a faculty meeting that, despite what everyone thought, he wasn't exactly Mussolini. Read one way, the libretto was just a nasty jibe. Read another, it could be taken as a bizarre death threat. Mr. Benedict turned the letters over to the Roanoke County Police Department, just to be cautious. Paranoia Runs Deep None of this helped ease the tensions in the department. To make matters worse, on October 24, Wayne Markert, the provost, met with members of the English department and read a statement warning them that any attempt to undermine the new M.F.A. program would be met with "consequences." Mr. Markert says the statement was prompted by the letters and was intended to put an end to departmental bickering. Instead, the vaguely threatening language only added to the growing paranoia. "It was scary," says Cathryn Hankla, an English professor. "I'm not sure what I can say and what I can't." When Mr. Dillard met privately with the president earlier that month, he said she warned him that criticizing the M.F.A. program could have serious repercussions "up to and including termination." Ms. Bell says she doesn't recall saying anything like that. At the same meeting, Mr. Dillard repeated his request to have his name removed from the professorship. Ms. Bell refused. He then asked if she would pass along a letter he had written to the donors, explaining why he did not want his name used. She said she would not. When asked why she refused to pass along Mr. Dillard's letter, the president said there was no reason to do so because she had already told the donors of the professor's feelings and that they wished to honor him anyway. Mr. Dillard has another explanation for why Ms. Bell won't deliver his letter. "I'm sure they're afraid the donors will withdraw the chair," he says. The professor has met with a lawyer, who informed him there wasn't much he could do to stop the university from using his name. He could sue, of course, but such a lawsuit would be costly and probably unsuccessful, the lawyer told him. All of which has left Mr. Dillard, who is 66, unsure about what to do next. He continues to teach at Hollins, and he praises his creative-writing students as talented and hard working. But as he sees it, the program he put on the map has been turned into a crass attempt to rake in cash. In addition, his name is now attached to something he doesn't believe in. As for the donors who gave $2-million to honor the professor, Ms. Larsen wonders if they are even aware of the distress their gift has caused. Someone out there who cares for Mr. Dillard, she says, might be really unhappy if they found out how he has come to feel about the use of his name. http://chronicle.com Section: The Faculty Volume 50, Issue 21, Page A8 |
Copyright © 2004 by The Chronicle of Higher Education