In a Today@Brown message Friday, Dean of the Faculty Leah VanWey and Dean of the College Ethan Pollock invited faculty to provide input on the University’s Reaffirming the Liberal Arts and Sciences initiative by participating in 20-person discussion sessions and submitting to a faculty feedback form.
The discussions will be facilitated by members of a faculty working group who have been exploring the “centrality of liberal arts education in the context of the national debate about the fundamental purpose and value of education,” according to the announcement.
“We put the working group together because over the last probably decade, in conversations with faculty all over campus, we’ve seen a change in how they’re experiencing advising with students, and we’ve seen in conversations with students a change in how they’re experiencing college,” VanWey said.
But the group’s composition has drawn criticism for its lack of representation from humanities departments.
Its members include Professor of Medical Science Nicolas Fawzi, Professor of Biostatistics and Public Health Joseph Hogan, Associate Professor of Biostatistics Alice Paul, Associate Professor of Computer Science Daniel Ritchie, Professor of Political Science Melvin Rogers, Professor of Chemistry and Physics Brenda Rubenstein ’07 and Professor of History Robert Self.
In an email to The Herald, Thangam Ravindranathan, professor of French and francophone studies, wrote that since History is housed in the social sciences, the working group has no representation of the arts and humanities.
“This is unfortunate,” she wrote. “The Division of Arts and Humanities houses 29 of Brown’s 80 or so undergraduate concentration programs, more than any other division.”
“It does seem to me striking that there isn’t a faculty member from literary studies or the arts, since you would think that liberal arts include essentially literary study, language study and the arts,” said Professor of English and Comparative Literature Kevin McLaughlin P’12, who previously served as the dean of the faculty.
In response to concerns about the group’s composition, Fawsi said that “the goal was to represent the different parts of the University, and I think that any small group is not going to have everything.”
Concerns over the composition of the working group are widespread among faculty, according to Classics Professor Johanna Hanink.
Rubenstein, who is also the director of data science, said that although the group could always use more “voices,” she disagrees that the group lacks “humanist” representation.
She noted that Pollock and Self are historians, VanWey is a sociologist and that there are “people from the School of Public Health who are social scientists” within the group.
VanWey said that representation from different fields of study was not a key factor when it came to appointing the group’s members. Instead, the goal was to include faculty members with varying levels of undergraduate advising experience.
“I’m looking for people who have the intellectual curiosity and humility and listening skills to be able to frame the questions and get input from the rest of campus,” she added.
Pollock noted that faculty across all the departments could fit these qualities, “so it was not an intentional exclusion,” adding that there will be future opportunities for other faculty to engage with the group’s work.
McLaughlin said he is happy the working group is requesting input from all faculty, but “it’s not the same thing as having somebody on the committee who’s there to present that perspective.”
Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature Gerhard Richter feels similarly and said that the call for input is “too little, too late.” He believes treating the “disciplines that traditionally we associate with a liberal arts core” as a secondary priority is “problematic.”
“This is the beginning of a process,” Pollock said. “It’s not the end, and so I don’t think we’re inviting people in afterwards. We just did a little preparatory work.”
So far, the group has focused its discussion around Brown’s liberal learning goals and the University’s alignment with the Open Curriculum.
Part of the initiative’s goal is to get faculty to have conversations about how to provide the best undergraduate education to students, VanWey said. After gathering faculty feedback, the group will come up with more concrete recommendations for changes to advising and liberal learning goals.
“If nothing else comes out of this, other than people spend(ing) several months talking about how we could do this better and thinking about it and signing up to be first-year advisors and all of those things, that would be an amazing outcome to me,” VanWey said.
“I hope that I will be proven wrong (and) everything will be great,” Richter said. “I wish that were the case, but I think it’s good for us to share this vigilance.”
“I think yes, reaffirming the liberal arts, I’m all for it — but let’s do it right,” he added.
Ivy Huang is a University News and Science & Research editor from New York City. Concentrating in English, she has a passion for literature and American history. Her favorite authors include Marilynne Robinson, Vladimir Nabokov, and Toni Morrison. Outside of writing, she enjoys playing basketball, watching documentaries, and beating her high score on Subway Surfers.
