Plans to distance the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs from the College of Arts and Sciences have incited a variety of fears and concerns among faculty.

“Out of a desire to strengthen the Maxwell School, we will weaken the College of Arts and Sciences, which is truly the heart of a liberal arts education,” said Jackie Orr, a sociology professor.

Professors seem to have come to a consensus on one issue – the need to openly discuss and debate the plans at length. In response, the Arts and Sciences faculty council will be hosting an open forum Wednesday afternoon. Some faculty concerns include the potential negative effects the plans could have on the quality of academic programs, the pace at which plans are moving forward and the prospect of a complete split between the two schools.

Currently, Maxwell is part of Arts and Sciences and does not have its own governing bodies or undergraduate programs separate from Arts and Sciences. Humanities, natural sciences and math fall under the Arts and Sciences umbrella, while the social sciences and professional programs, such as international relations and public policy, are a part of Maxwell.

Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina introduced plans to untangle the two schools in an e-mail sent March 26, titled the “Whitepaper,” which outlined plans to give Maxwell more autonomy in deciding Maxwell-specific curricula, tenure and promotion, and an exclusive undergraduate program, according to the Whitepaper.

Spina responded to the first wave of faculty concerns by e-mailing a revised Whitepaper proposal. Chancellor Nancy Cantor also responded to worries voiced at Wednesday’s University Senate meeting with assurances that faculty would play an active role in carrying out the Whitepaper’s proposals.

Divisions in opinion among professors are not along college or departmental lines. While many Maxwell professors are supportive of the proposed changes, some social science professors said they do not believe their department should be isolated in Maxwell when their field is inherently a part of the liberal arts tradition found in Arts and Sciences.

As a professor of sociology, Orr is concerned the plan will distance her from Arts and Sciences’ programs and faculty in women and gender studies or African American studies, to which her field is closely tied, Orr said.

“For sociology, in particular – structurally speaking – we will be asked to turn our backs on the interdisciplinary studies, on the humanities, on religion, on philosophy,” she said.

Faculty strictly in Arts and Sciences are also concerned about the future relationship between professors in the two schools and the effect the change might have on the quality of academics.

One of the proposals in the Whitepaper calls for separate governing bodies in Maxwell that would handle faculty hiring, tenure and promotion. This would change the current system in which a mixture of professors from Maxwell and Arts and Sciences faculty sit on tenure and promotion committees.

Mark Brown, a professor of philosophy in Arts and Sciences, said taking Maxwell faculty out of the discussions of tenure, promotion or curricula could have a corrosive effect on quality and standards of the Arts and Sciences departments.

“It’s significant to have a broad variety of backgrounds. If you’re evaluating someone in mathematics you’d think to have all math, but to leave it entirely to them is too narrow,” Brown said. “So you bring in the philosophers and physicists that help in quality control.”

Brown said departments can become complacent with their standards, but the outside view that Maxwell brings to promotion and tenure decisions regarding humanities or the sciences provides essential constructive criticism.

Deborah Pellow, a professor of anthropology in Maxwell, and Brown said the social sciences provide a natural and necessary bridge between the humanities and the natural sciences. These two very different fields would be left without the social sciences to play the role of translator during faculty and committee meetings if Maxwell were to pull away from Arts and Sciences, Brown said.

“They’re our translators,” Brown said. “If you take social sciences out, you leave behind two groups that don’t know how to talk to each other.”

Despite these concerns, Jeffrey Stonecash, a professor of political science in Maxwell, said he thinks the autonomous committees and governing bodies in Maxwell used to address faculty matters are long overdue.

“As for tenure, promotions and curriculum, I always thought it was the weirdest thing in the world that we have no governing structure,” Stonecash said.

The Whitepaper also proposes the creation of a small “signature undergraduate program” in Maxwell. The program will capitalize on the reputation of Maxwell to attract strong undergraduate students, according to the Whitepaper.

But professors like Orr and Pellow are particularly concerned with the motivations for this new program, they said. Rather than create a program out of an educational need for students, the program is being presented as a marketing strategy with no regard to the effects it might have on other departments, Orr said.

“Market and money concerns seem to be driving the creation of that major,” Orr said. “They should be driven by an intellectual desire. We are developing this program to sell the Maxwell brand to undergraduates. My job is to develop curriculum, not sell a brand,” she said.

Many professors in both schools said they are weary of how fast the administration is trying to move the plans forward without thorough discussion.

“The most fundamental part is it appears these significant changes are being rushed without an adequate opportunity to discuss whether this is best for all or part of the parties involved,” Brown said.

Brown said it is clear the administration is moving forward with the plans in the Whitepaper at the end of the semester because Maxwell Dean Mitchel Wallerstein is leaving, and the college will need to begin a new search in the upcoming months.

During the search for a new dean “they wanted to say exactly what the dean’s responsibility is and Maxwell’s role in relation to the College of Arts and Sciences,” he said.

Don Mitchell, a professor of geography, also said the changes to the relationship between the two schools seem rushed.

Although Mitchell agrees with some of the proposed changes, he believes the proposals and future implementation should be in the hands of the faculty and not “top down,” he said.

The Wednesday faculty meeting open to all Arts and Sciences faculty – including Maxwell – will provide an opportunity for some of these concerns and grievances to be talked about constructively.

Forty faculty members in Maxwell signed a letter to Spina, the vice chancellor, outlining a set of questions that still need to be answered before any part of the plans to distance the two colleges and make Maxwell more autonomous go forward.

“What effect will these new structures have on Arts and Sciences? What are Maxwell’s concerns? Institutional concerns? What will they be?” Orr said. “It shocked people because very few people knew this was coming. All the answers to these questions need to be addressed before we move forward.”

Published on April 27, 2010 at 12:00 pm