Illustration by Michael Capparelli/Guardian

As the Thurgood Marshall
College community waits to see
whether the Dimensions of Culture writing sequence will receive a procedural
facelift, D.O.C. Director Abraham Shragge continues to occupy a rather
precarious position.

Following committee report that reviewed curriculum late
last month, and sided with longtime critics who argued that the courses have been
“watered down” in recent years, Shragge must now decide whether to endorse the
committee’s recommendations and advocate the proposed structural changes, or
continue to stubbornly deny that D.O.C. is at a crossroads.

While this board is hoping for the former, it is resigned to
anticipate the latter.

Shragge, who has shown little responsiveness to criticisms
of the program over the past year, seems unreasonably resistant to any major
structural or curricular changes. He demonstrated this by not rehiring teaching
assistants Benjamin Balthaser and Scott Boehm last year, despite the pair’s
high student evaluations and obvious commitment to the sequence’s core
ideology.

He demonstrated this by repeatedly denying that the program
had strayed from the ideals that inspired its 1990 inception, though many professors
and students — purported to be the heart and soul of the D.O.C. program — did
not agree.

And finally, he demonstrated this reluctance by not
immediately committing to follow through on the report’s recommendations,
saying only that he was planning discussions with community members to examine
their options in choosing the course’s future.

While the decision will thankfully fall to a steering
committee and not Shragge himself, his actions over the next few months will
directly affect the college’s cohesion and the message that the program is
trying to disseminate to students.

History professor and review committee member David
Gutierrez was correct when he said that D.O.C. needs more than just a
commitment of material resources, such as enhanced training for TAs and hiring
of ladder-rank faculty members.

In order for D.O.C. to change, it needs an ideological
commitment from its leaders and not empty lip service.

Given his record so far, it’s hard to visualize Shragge
changing his tune and actually granting the report’s findings the weight they
deserve. However, in the interest of Marshall
students, one can only hope that the advisory board’s members will be treated
as informed observers and not tokenistic figureheads.