To the Editor:
Although it is not at all uncommon for professors to leave one university for another, the circumstances of professor Patrick Deneen’s decision to leave Georgetown for Notre Dame, together with the attention The Hoya has paid to the event, invite further comment. Professor Deneen’s interest both in undergraduate education and in undergraduates is well known to many here, including those, like me, who hardly know him. It is an interest conditioned, to be sure, by his personal commitment to a forum that is thought by some to be quite traditional in its orientation, and that perception, right or wrong, may have had its effect.
But whatever the circumstances, it is always a pity when someone as invested in students as professor Deneen decides to move on, and it is certainly reasonable to ask if there is a pattern into which his resignation, with its concern for undergraduate education, fits. Certainly there is some prima face evidence that there may be: Undergraduate members have largely been excluded from university committees except those that effect them directly, and professors have effectively been debarred from certain university offices concerned with undergraduate education — like the Office of International Programs — where formerly they would advise and consent. The Center for Social Justice languishes without a permanent director. It is evident that we no longer flourish in certain national academic competitions. Even the previous unequal balance between teaching and scholarship in matters of hiring, retention and promotion has now been unmistakably reformulated, and in some departments administrative initiatives have dramatically, reduced the amount of teaching expected of certain professors. An enlarged faculty has not led to greater interaction with students, though it has increased academic publication, which seems to have been the desired result. When faculty members retire, increasingly they do so with hardly a nod — which sadly is what many now desire. A recent editorial in this newspaper even asks if the presence of a Department of Public Safety officer causes undergraduate students instinctively to “straighten up and try to walk by without being noticed?” Honestly!
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? First of all, “with all faults,” as book dealers say, the undergraduate program still retains certain of the strengths trumpeted in our catalogues, though these seem to me less valued now than they once were. It is to be hoped, but not expected, that a genuine interest in the undergraduate program may in the future inform administrative appointments, however exalted, and that from that inquiry change may come — but change is certainly needed. Finally, it is to be hoped, not expected, that the loss of professor Deneen, which has occasioned these reflections, may possibly encourage his department to seek, in his replacement, one with some at least of his evident pedagogical interests.
John C. Hirsh
Professor of English
