1973: Literacy and Literature

Abstract

IT IS ONLY BY SOME EXTRAORDINARY SEries of historical coincidences that I, primarily a teacher rather than a scholar, stand at this podium. I shall use that vantage to attempt what may be only a straw in the winds of educational change. Perhaps I should interrupt myself to say that, as the year has worn on, and the mail I have had from job-seekers has grown more desperate, I have thought about abandoning my subject and reading from that correspondence. The credentials-including extensive publications-of many being denied tenure this year are awesome; the new crop of Ph.D.'s is impressive, even with regard to teaching experience. And the horror stories about conditions in particular English and modern language departments could fill my time. I shall offer only two particular examples. At a prestigious, private eastern university, all the nontenured faculty in one literature department will be gone in the next several years, all freshmen and sophomore courses are in the process of being dropped from the curriculum, and students will, henceforth, crowd into those upper division courses that the tenured faculty will teach. At a large state college, where the teaching of literacy is a pressing need, and where the teaching load is four courses, the faculty will be allowed one elective course each, whether or not those will combine properly to support the existing English majors in residence. If there are not enough courses for a major, the major may be allowed to perish. In addition, no new faculty will be hired, except to teach skills courses, and then on a per-course basis. The principle in both cases is simple: cut costs by cutting humanities, especially literature; where the teaching of composition is a necessity, use your faculty for that purpose; chop away at nontenured faculty and hire adjuncts on a percourse basis to teach what additional courses