Best Fascist in Town : This one goes to the one
whose name we
shall not speak. The one who put LATTICE in
front of the FARGO.
Yeah, lattice! The only person with the audacity
to own a
restaurant that sells $5.00 tuna sandwiches in an area where more
than 25% of the households make less than $15,000. The only
person with the audacity to not leave a tip to the wait-staff at
said restaurant, despite the millions that she flaunts. The only
person with a house bigger than the French House in a town that
she doesn't actually live in. We love the help, but listen to
the people. They might need a place to go without those annoying
checkered plates after a while.Faculty Excluded from Presidential Searches
TO THE EDITOR:
In �The Well-Tempered Search� in the May-June issue of Academe, Patricia van der Vorm argues effectively that service on search committees is �one of the most important responsibilities [faculty members] assume in professional life.� As faculty members at Wells College, where van der Vorm serves as chair of the board of trustees, we found her argument persuasive, yet ironic.
Faculty and other constituencies played a very limited role in the choice of former Wells president Robert Plane and no part whatever in the choice of our current president, Lisa Marsh Ryerson. Plane was chosen an interim president in 1991 after the removal of the previous president by the board following a vote of no confidence by the faculty. An inclusive presidential search committee was established, and we expected a successful national search. However, the committee�s work was abruptly terminated when Plane announced to the board his willingness to serve as president, whereupon the board immediately appointed him.
In February 1995 the board replaces Plane with Ryerson, a 1981 alumna of Wells who had been serving as dean of students. The decision to appoint Ryerson was made during a snowstorm when barely half of the board was on campus. There had been no prior indication or notification that Plane was about to be removed (or would resign). At a hastily called all-campus meeting, the community was informed that Plane had resigned, effective immediately, and that Ryerson would be Wells� seventeenth president.
The fact that there was no search, that the board acted precipitately and in complete secrecy, and that many trustees themselves seemed caught off guard by the rapid unfolding of events, raise questions of legitimacy that continue to haunt the campus and disturb many in the community several years later.
We believe one principal outcome of these events has been a diminution of faculty authority and ownership of important sectors of academic life at Wells, including areas where the faculty has unquestioned expertise. The specter of administrative and trustee fiat still weighs heavily, albeit often camouflage behind an illusion of openness. Although our campus, like others, is fond of empaneling committees and task forces to study, report on, and recommend policy, the policy itself comes most often from the top down. The principle of shared governance frequently seems to be a charade, and many faculty members feel disenfranchised and demoralized. In our opinion, this state of affairs cannot be separated from the actions of the board in unilaterally appointing college leadership in the early and mid 1990s, instead of sharing that responsibility with faculty and others in the community.
Van der Vorm was not a Wells trustee at that time, and bears no responsibility for earlier board actions. Still, as faculty members and officers of the Wells chapter of the AAUP, we find her advocacy of thorough searches involving all segments of community not only cogent but ironic.
M. BRUCE BENNETT (English) Wells College
A. THOMAS VAWTER (Biology) Wells College
Bennett is vice president of the Wells College AAUP chapter; Vawter is president.
______________
ALUMNA LETTER
FROM: Pamela Davis Renai della Rena �47
DATE: April, 2003
Dear President Ryerson:
After all these years, I am still proud, and I flaunt it, of being a graduate of Wells. The credit for that success, however, has far too little to do with me.
I arrived in Aurora that long ago September ill-equipped for what was ahead of me. I was immature, ill-prepared after five years in what was then the worst public school system in the United States (Florida), distracted, hyper-excited by being at long last independent, and, although I hid it very well, incredibly shy and insecure. Had I found myself one of a thousand incoming Freshmen I might never have found my way to the Registrar�s Office. Being elected Song Leader seemed more important than anything else that might happen to me on campus. I had at the time only my native intelligence, my enthusiasm, and my elementary school years in the best system (Shaker Heights) to help me.
But I was one of fifty-some, and I was at Wells. Starting with the Dean, who greeted me by name before we were introduced, the Assistant Dean, whose crusty exterior hid lemon meringue when push came to shove, continuing with the sleepy village which charmed without distracting, and ending with a dozen or so professors who taught me in their classrooms, in their living rooms, sitting on the front lawn, walking back from Macmillan to Main (sneaking in that last question for that last answer), not one of them ever stinted, ever seemed bored or tired or anxious to get rid of me. One by one, little by little, they made of me what both the College and I wanted me to be: a student. Two years on Registrar�s List but a more than decent graduation.
I majored in English Literature. One of the requirements was �a reading knowledge of a foreign language�. Not having had access to languages in high school, I started from scratch and spent three years with the Fleissners. Only six years later I moved to Germany for three years, and they were with me everywhere I went, although I wished they had remembered to teach me the word for �ladies room�. I was the only non-employee at the American Embassy who could get along in German, so they sent me to teach English to a bevy of gynasium students. My experience was successful enough that the wife of our then Ambassador, James B. Conant, sent copies of a speech I made on the subject to her friends and colleagues in America.
A few years later I moved to Italy, which has now been my home for more than forty years. The first impact of Florence came right out of my Art History textbook: �There it is! Palazzo Strozzi!� I more or less fell into a professional career as Assistant to the Headmaster of the American School for thirteen years, and Associate Director of the Sweetbriar College and University of Michigan Summer Programs in Florence during that time, as well as of the Michigan/Wisconsin Study Abroad Program for another three. This meant that I knew more
university professors among the Americans here than any other kind. Never did it fail that, when I mentioned Wells, they said, �Hmm! Good school!� I was proud.
President Ryerson, I want to continue being proud, not only of what Wells was, but of what it is. What I read on the handsome web site, what I hear from those who, luckier than I, have been back for visits or to reunions, makes me wonder how long I can do that.
Where have the Classics gone? I live in a country where both Latin and Greek are taught to all college-preparatory students; Wells has even discontinued the history course in classics which was once required to avoid mathematics. Foreign Languages? I live in a country where English is taught from the first grade to the end of high school, and a second language added in Junior School. I understand that with the retirement of the present professors no tenure-track substitutes are being hired, and the department will be reduced to a bit of French, a bit of Spanish, and some German. Philosophy? Is this still a liberal arts college, or has it become a technological school, a kind of four-year Junior College?
Much is being said in the Express and other places of a tight financial moment, and Wells is certainly not alone if it has money problems. But there was a sizeable bequest last year, and I understand that Pleasant Rowland is being more than generous to her college. Could we not perhaps persuade her that gifts spent on hiring and retaining the kind of faculty which has made Wells what it is and has kept it open and viable all these years might be more important than architecture? I believe that good teaching can be done in a garage or the Boat House or the steps of Main, but that a new pizza parlor or a �modernized� Inn are not, in the long run, going to make the kind of difference that counts with the kind of students Wells has always attracted, desirable as they certainly are and much as I would have enjoyed them. Remember, I have worked with and known Welsl College students through to the present generation, and I know them to be as hungry for first-class teaching now as they ever were.
Alan Downer, one of those wonderful teachers who, at the end of my Junior year, left Aurora for Princeton, made a farewell speech much of which still rings in my ears. He said, �There are those who call this an ivory tower. Well, remember---ivory is one of the strongest of materials, and if you only look you can see very, very far from a tower.�
Please, President Ryerson, stand on that strong stuff and look out that tower window. It�s the future of my college and yours that�s out there.
Sincerely yours,
Pamela Davis Renai della Rena �47
_____________________
Alumna Letter to the Editor of the Syracuse Post-Standard
Published in the Cayuga Edition, November 2001
Wells alum criticizes response to concerns
TO THE EDITOR:
The October 18 Neighbors presented a long letter about Aurora and Wells College by Randi Zabriskie, an alumna and the wife of a trustee. In fairness, I wish the opportunity to provide a different perspective.
Born and raised in Aurora, I graduated from Wells in �75. My Sunday school teachers were Wells students, as was my first swimming instructor. I have fond childhood memories of performing in campus events. Later I worked at the village shop owned by Jane Morgan �34. My father was a village justice of the peace, scout master, and fire chief; my mother worked for the local school district. I babysat for nearly every college family in the village. I share a lot of history with the Wella-Aurora community, and my connections are still strong.
Last spring, a wealthy benefactress arrived in this very small village and staged a media event to unveil to residents her vision for their village. There were many serious questions, but no opportunity to ask them.
The Aurora Coalition is an incorporated non-profit group of residents and alumnae who mounted a legal challenge to the college�s plans to gut the Aurora Inn and demolish an adjacent building without a full review or consideration of alternatives. The group does not reject economic development, but questions a refusal to follow procedures protecting buildings in a National Historic Register District. The group has active support from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Preservation League of New York State.
In response to a different concern, another group of alumnae distributed a petition which objects to the proposed destruction and relocation of college buildings in a Master Plan �unanimously endorsed [by the board] ...as the guiding instrument for campus physical planning,� according to the president. To date, approximately 15% of all living alumnae � over 900 women � have signed the petiion, asking the trustees and administration to preserve and protect the traditional and contemporary architectural beauty that makes Wells unique.
I am a devoted Wells alumna who has given every year to the Annual Fund. I am also a member of the Aurora Coalition, and a signer and promoter of the alumnae petition. These positions are not mutually exclusive. I love Wells. My loyalty is to the institution. I disagree with some of the policies of the current administration. So do hundreds and hundreds of other alumnae. An open discussion of issues and ideas should be welcomed in an academic community, not condemned as personal disloyalty to a president.
To have the wife of a trustee belittle the concerns of other alumnae in the local press indicates disregard for those trained at Wells to make thoughtful, informed decisions. Likewise, it insults many of us to see our Alumnae Association President acting as an administration mouthpiece in the local press (�How can anyone say no?,� by Patti Wenzel Callahan, the Post-Standard of August 31), promoting a plan to destroy historic buildings in Aurora. It is unfortunate that the College responds to widespread concern in this divisive way.
I ask Wells College to show integrity and real leadership, to begin communicating with her alumnae and the community, to start listening instead of dismissing, to accept the fact that dissent is not disloyalty, and to understand that the broadest possible base of support is needed to carry the college into this new century.
Sincerely,
Pru Campbell Kirkpatrick
Rochester, NY
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