Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. Ryan Mitchell Wittingslow's avatar
  2. Jason Stanley's avatar
  3. Daniel Greco's avatar
  4. Nobody's avatar
  5. Roger of Invisible America's avatar
  6. Santa Monica's avatar
  7. Optimistic about LLM's avatar

Humanities, including philosophy, under threat at Valparaiso University, a Lutheran university in Indiana

Brian Leiter

Coming so close on the heels of St. Norbert College's mass firing of humanities tenure-track faculty (tenured faculty may be next there!), this is an  alarming trend:

The administration of Valparaiso University has placed Philosophy, along with a number of other humanities disciplines, under review for possible discontinuance.  We'd appreciate the philosophical community's support by way of signing a petition and/or sending emails to relevant administrators and board members.  Contact details are given on the petition, which you can find here:  

https://www.change.org/SaveTheHumanitiesAtVU

Comments are open for more information, strategic suggestions, etc.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

7 responses to “Humanities, including philosophy, under threat at Valparaiso University, a Lutheran university in Indiana”

  1. John Pillette

    Apart from the contractual arguments that faculty may have, doesn’t this open up Valparaiso “University” to a collateral attack, viz., that an administration may not change a “University” into a “Polytechnic” and thereafter continue to use the name of “University”?

    I believe that in order to hold itself out as a university, and institution must have some core departments, including philosophy. After all, Kraft is not allowed to market Velveeta as “cheese”—legally, this product must be clearly labeled as “processed cheese food”. Given that Administrators are marketers at heart, this might succeed in getting their attention where other approaches have not, and I am happy to contribute to this effort by drafting a brief.

    Reply
  2. John Pillette

    Come to think of it, get me some California students of these other de-humanities-ized institutions, and we can file a False Advertising Law (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17500 et seq.) right now.

    Reply
  3. Michel

    'University' is a protected (and accredited) appellation in Canada and elsewhere (and, as a result, means something very different from 'college'). But my understanding is that it's not protected in the U.S. Unfortunately.

    Reply
  4. John Pillette

    I recall some years ago here in San Francisco that the “Academy of Art” wanted to up its game (i.e. tuition fees), and in order to become the “Academy of Art University” it had to add some departments. The new additions included intercollegiate sports, b/c of course having those are most of what makes a U a U … but I think adding the humanities may have also been required.

    Reply
  5. Richard Galvin

    Of course let us not forget "Trump University".

    Reply
  6. Clayton

    Hi all,

    This is terrible. I would like to help. I am sceptical of petitions. The petitions that were circulated to help save the jobs at ACU helped get the word out about the terrible things being done, but they were ignored by the administration. In the end, I fear that they convince people that they have done something helpful but often* do not move the minds of anyone who might make a difference. (I put an asterisk there because a petition in some places -might- have done some good. In Australia, a petition can be created that would be discussed by lawmakers with a sufficient number of signatures, but Australian lawmakers will almost never (as a matter of regulation) consider change.org petitions and so all that good will was essentially binned when it could have been used to draw a response from lawmakers. I blame our union who were pushing people to sign petitions that couldn't have been seen by lawmakers when they could have easily set up one that could have actually been useful using the resources available online to get petitions considered by lawmakers.) I will sign, but I hope that others will, at the very least, send letters to VU’s board and upper administration (from the petition–see below). It would also be helpful to hear from the people there what ideas they have to put pressure on people with actual power to shape outcomes. We asked people to write the members of academic senate, politicians, etc. In the end, it didn't work, but it seemed like a step in the right direction. But I do think we should (as Brian is doing) try to think of strategies that go beyond (and possibly replace) the petitions that I fear hoover up good intentions and direct them to places where they will not influence outcomes. One idea would be to make pitches to alumni. These universities need the support of donors and it might be that donors aren't happy that the integrity of the university is under attack from the current administration insofar as it is targeting areas of humanistic study essential to the university.

    I'm going to go sign the petition, but I hope we get more ideas about ways to help from people on the ground and general strategies for dealing with situations like this from the broader community and that we'll committ to supporting these further efforts.

    E-Mail list: Jose.Padilla@valpo.edu, Eric.Johnson@valpo.edu, lua.board@valpo.edu

    Administrators: President Jose Padilla, Provost Eric Johnson.

    Board Members: David A. Bochnowski, Cristal M. Brisco, Emily Chase, Jeffrey H. Dobbs, Mark H. Duesenberg, Craig Dwight, Susan Jenny Ehr, Carolyn Schlie Femovich, Geoff Gilmore, Louie Gonzalez, Christopher Good, Robert D. Hansen, Jr., Mark P. Helge, Danielle Carter Iddins, Colette J. Irwin-Knott, Bruce R. Laning, Marian J. Moon, Andrew N. Nunemaker, Noe M. Ortega, Christopher Petrini-Poli, Lindsay Roettger, Philip C. Spahn, Jon A. Steinbrecher, Paul A. Strasen, Julie M. Winkler

    Reply
  7. Steven Hales

    Along with Clayton, I am skeptical that petitions are much more than protest theater. When the philosophy major was abolished at my university along with most of the philosophers, I wrote a petition that garnered 1000 signatures from around the world. I sent it to my system chancellor and university president and heard… crickets. Literally no response at all, not even mealy-mouthed boilerplate about how seriously they were taking my concerns. The message that neither I nor philosophy itself mattered in the smallest way could not have been made more clear. Brian is right that this is an alarming trend—but at the poor colleges and universities. As far as I can tell, philosophy is doing just fine at the rich schools. Unfortunately there are more of the former than the latter.

    —–
    KEYWORDS:
    Primary Blog

    Reply

Designed with WordPress