College Mishandles Constructive Critique

Dear Editor,

Through the ever-thickening haze surrounding the issues in the Dimensions of Culture program, we should not forget the actual teaching assistants and students who are at the heart of the issue. This letter is not about the curriculum. It is about the gross mishandling of a constructive critique. Instead of listening to ideas from colleagues, the Thurgood Marshall College administration, from the start, has aggressively attempted to suppress all suggestion that the program might need changing and, finally, remove two of the colleagues who made the suggestion. Instead of supporting an idea from two good-standing colleagues, or even considering the idea, the Marshall administration, from the start, has single-mindedly set out to sink the idea and to sink two colleagues. This depersonalization of the matter was epitomized even in the way the administration handled the walkout. The night before, Marshall Provost Allan Havis pleaded with the entire D.O.C. community, via e-mail, to refrain from coming to class at all, rather than disrupt lecture.

This not-walk-in strategy, though perhaps a good one in disbanding the student protest (though at a university I don’t think we should be dealing in tactics), was a missed opportunity to address a burning issue. The matter at hand was not mentioned even once in the e-mail. Likewise, the provost also issued a threat of a “”commensurate reduction in pay”” to any Teaching Assistant that wouldn’t be present in the following lecture. The fine, considering most TAs lead two sections, would have amounted to around one-eightieth of a monthly paycheck, or $17. And yet the most patronizing aspect of the threat was not the fine, but the fact, again, that the provost decided not to talk about the issue – or even to mention it.

If the administration accuses the Lumumba-Zapata Coalition and its supporters of ad hominem attacks, let it stand accused of abuse of authority, a calculated politics of indifference and dehumanizing the entire situation.

– Jack Blebea

Dimensions of Culture teaching assistant