Institutional Hypocrisy

By Charles Monaco

I don’t claim to know everything about the administration of a University; in fact, I don’t claim to know a damn thing about it. I don’t know how (or if) political concerns influence decisions made by a group of people who obviously don’t all think the same way. To put it simply: I don’t know much about how the administration at this school operates, so I am not going to blindly assert that they have done anything particularly evil.

But any student with even an iota of concern for the University would have to admit that there is a general pattern of actions emerging which is both suspicious and frustrating. Looking at the front page of last Friday’s (September 18th) Argus alone, you might come across these pieces of information:

- The University has decided to offer one of our most beloved and talented professors a three-year terminal contract, which means he is effectually fired;

- "The Independent Ivy," a slogan which we payed thousands and thousands of dollars for a marketing consultant to conceive, is being put to use in the new University viewbook;

- Long Lane, an 89 acre juvenile detention facility, may be purchased by Wesleyan as soon as next year, for an estimated $15 million.

At the same time, the few small classes that are offered are as difficult as ever to get into, many utterly incompetent professors continue their tenure-protected careers, and financial aid continues to be insufficient for many.

Intrigued, you might read further into the paper. On p. 10, Bob Barton, V.P. of University Relations, is quoted as saying, "people in Sacramento, California know that course access has been a problem at Wesleyan," and "we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and make Wesleyan visible to these folks." Meanwhile, over on p. 12, Professor Carla Antonaccio, former chair of the Advisory Committee, states emphatically that "the administration will not respond to student pressure when making personnel decisions."

What we are left with is a University that:

(1) considers student input to be meaningless, and refuses to consider a "popular" professor an academically outstanding one.

(2) thinks it better to try to change Sacramento’s image of Wesleyan’s course access system than to actually try to change the system itself.

(3) spends millions of dollars frivolously on buying up unsightly facilities instead of putting the money into financial aid, or maybe even hiring a professor or two — perhaps, even, hiring Professor Bernstein for more than three years.

I don’t know how these decisions are made, hell, I don’t even know if any one individual is responsible for them. But I do know when the image of the University becomes more important to the administration than the students that attend it. I do know when professors are so obviously judged by factors other than their talent and competence. I do know institutional hypocrisy when I see it. And I cannot accept it.

Monaco is a member of the class of 2000.