Comparative Literature's Official Response to "Needs Attention" Designation

24 January 2012

TO:

Vicki Ruiz, Dean, School of Humanities
James Steintrager, Acting Dean, School of Humanities
Michael Gottfredson, EVC/Provost

RE: Department of Comparative Literature Response to “Needs Attention” Designation

The department understands that severe budget cuts require aggressive measures, and the focus on undergraduate enrollment makes sense, especially where the aim is to attract new students rather than to redistribute the existing population. Comparative Literature programs nationally and historically have been small, but we are directing our curricular and teaching energies toward increasing enrollments, and in fact have been doing so diligently over the past several years as we discuss below. We need to begin our response by clarifying the record on which the current assessment was based.

Several “Needs Attention” SOH departments have pointed out inconsistencies in the metrics of the recent review: their application and interpretation. Our department’s numbers also need to be reconsidered for reasons specific to our program. The Department of Comparative Literature has the good fortune to serve as the academic home for a number of prestigious faculty who have been brought to UCI to head high profile research units. David Goldberg, for example, leads the system-wide Humanities Research Institute. Ngugi wa Thiong’o was hired in 2002 to direct the International Center for Writing and Translation. And Nasrin Rahimieh came to UCI in 2006 to head the new Samuel Jordan Center of Persian Studies and Culture. The department also includes a Distinguished Professor (Gabrielle Schwab), the editor of Postmodern Culture (Eyal Amiran), and the Campus Writing Coordinator from 2001-07 (Susan Jarratt). In the case of each of these faculty members, a special assignment has meant a reduced teaching load so that, in a department of 11/12 members, almost half devote considerable time to administrative obligations. Goldberg, for example, has no teaching responsibilities (though he teaches a graduate seminar on occasion). Others have reduced course loads through contractual arrangements.

These faculty and their centers bring considerable notice, millions of dollars in external funding, and intellectual vibrancy to the School. That Comparative Literature has been the department of choice for such dynamic faculty and programs is very much to our credit. We find, however, that a metrical calculation of student credit hours that does not take into account these special arrangements misrepresents the department’s labor. The chart on p. 2 of the Nov. 15th memo lists Comp Lit’s filled faculty FTE at 11.75. If administrative assignments had been taken into account, this figure would be closer to 9. A recalculation on this basis puts our Total Majors per Filled FTE closer to 10, rather than the 6.61 listed on the memo, and would adjust the SCH per FTE accordingly.

Any statistical profile is a snapshot of a program in process. From our inception in 2004 as a stand-alone department, Comparative Literature has been very active in building our undergraduate program and has increased our majors since then (currently 42). Early on, we negotiated with English to establish courses that would serve as electives for their majors and have been offering these on a regular basis. In 2006 and again in 2010-11, we revised our curriculum so as to create three tracks for majors based on our knowledge of the interests and career paths for students in the Humanities: World Literature (for future teachers), Comparative Literature (for students headed to graduate school), and Cultural Studies (for students with broad interdisciplinary aims).

Over the past few years, Comparative Literature has been working closely with the Associate Deans of Undergraduate Education in the School to respond to the need for larger enrollment courses. We’ve created appealing topics, participated in cross-disciplinary teaching opportunities (FIP and Hum Core), and cross-listed our courses with high-enrollment departments (e.g., English, History, and Film and Media Studies). Judging that cultural studies and world literature may be two areas of wide appeal, we’ve created new lower-division, Gen Ed courses to tap interests of students across campus. This quarter (Winter 2012) CL 10 (GE IV and VIII), Comics and Superheroes (Amiran), enrolled 97 students. (Requests for the course approached 200, but we were restricted to an enrollment of 97 by the room size.) CL 10 (GE IV and VIII), Masterpieces of World Literature, will be taught by Jane O. Newman in fall 2012. The department has submitted a Letter of Intent to develop this course as an online offering to UC and Non-UC students under the Wave II UCOP initiative.

Higher enrollment courses in recent years have included the following:

FIP: Consciousness (Terada), 2009-10, 71 students FIP: Persuasion and Social Change (Jarratt; Newman), 2009-10, 66 students FIP: Consciousness (Amiran), 2011-12, 72 students CL 141, Golden Age Comics (Amiran), spring 2010, 52 students CL 100A, African Literature (Ngugi), fall 2010, 67 students CL 105, Comparative Multiculturalism (Schlichter), fall 2010, 63 students CL 102, Melodrama (Terada), winter 2011, 57 students CL 160, Latin American Film (Johnson), spring 2011, 60 students CL 160, Hong Kong/Chinese Cinema (Abbas), fall 2011, 78 students Humanities Core Course, Declarations in Dialogue (Jarratt), winter quarters, 2010-13, approx. 900 students

Comparative Literature has been actively building its capacity to offer undergraduates a rigorous education in critical cultural competencies—a kind of education that will prepare them to be active global citizens in a diverse world. We value highly the pedagogies that enable students to learn to speak and write powerfully in multiple languages, to interpret complex cultural messages and act thoughtfully in a world filled with ethical dilemmas. The multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-literate education we offer in Comparative Literature prepares students for advanced study in humanities, law, and other fields, and improves student employability. While we are participating whole-heartedly in the campus-wide effort to overcome the dire economic challenges we face, the department of Comparative Literature does not want to lose sight of the indispensable intellectual and pedagogical contributions of a humanistic education for 21st-century global citizens.

In the University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, UCI students found humanities courses more satisfying than courses in any other school. Results for students in Comparative Literature courses were also very positive in UCUES data. Future assessments should take such data into account. A small department does not have the resources to conduct the kind of study that would answer the question we often hear posed: why do students select one major over another? An investment in such a study campus-wide would put any future assessment of quality and decisions about resource allocation on a more solid footing. In the mean time, the department of Comparative Literature is polling its majors to see how they found out about CL and what they value in this program. We are reaching out to community college students who take courses in world literature and related subjects, forging connections with faculty teaching those courses. We are paying attention to our program at every level and welcome the opportunity to communicate about our efforts and successes.

Finally, we wish to address the question of restructuring departments in the SOH. The APG expresses an interest in the SOH reducing the number of small independent units in Humanities (p. 3). Does the UCI School of Humanities have an inordinate number of small units? To approach this question comparatively, we investigated the organization of humanities at other UC system campuses. We report the following: UCLA Humanities Division = 23 units, UC Berkeley = 17 units, UC Davis = 15 majors and programs; UCI = 15 departments. It seems, on comparison with other UC campuses, that Humanities at UCI does not have an excessive number of small units. Despite this evidence, Comp Lit is willing to entertain the prospect of joining forces with other units. Any such restructuring must be grounded in shared intellectual and disciplinary aims. We are currently engaged in conversation with other units about the intellectual grounds of possible collaborations.

Comparative Literature Expresses Solidarity with E.S.C.A.P.E.

FROM: Department of Comparative Literature UC Irvine
TO: Dean, School of Humanities

January 31, 2012

On January 27, 2012, E.S.C.A.P.E, a coalition of UCI undergraduate ethnic students, with support from several other ethnic studies groups at UCI, responded to the UCI administration “Needs Attention” memo (“‘Needs Attention’ Memo and The State of Ethnic Studies at UCI,”). The Department of Comparative Literature calls on UCI to respect and respond to this document, and to take it as a starting point for a meaningful engagement with the interdisciplinary departments and programs at UCI.

The administration memo to which E.S.C.A.P.E responds listed several units in the School of Humanities that the administration considers “need attention”: African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Women's Studies, Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages and Literatures, the Chicano/ Latino Studies Department in the School of Social Sciences, and the now-reorganized Department of European Languages and Studies. The “Needs Attention” memo criticizes the "low enrollments and low student-faculty ratios" in these programs and implies that their nature, existence, and level of support are being reconsidered.

In its response E.S.C.A.P.E writes, “we feel that this is an attack on studies that are crucial to the development of critical consciousness among students and the UCI community.” The signatories single out “the meaningful impact these units offer students in areas of critical thinking, identity and cultural competency, understanding historical legacies and struggles . . . and the futures of our diverse communities.” They argue against evaluating the performance of units based on their size, rather than on their intellectual and pedagogical achievements, and call on the administration and the Academic Planning Group to work with the units and students to increase enrollments.

The E.S.C.A.P.E response continues a history of student involvement in curricular reform at UCI. Significant curricular changes safeguarding or advancing interdisciplinary and critical studies have often been driven by students at moments of systemic crisis such as we are facing today. The African American Studies Department at UCI was created after student activism on behalf of underrepresented populations and fields of study in 1989, when UCI had a total of five black faculty on campus (less than 1% of the faculty). Stephanie Lopez, a member of Associated Graduate Students then, said: “They’ve got to start opening doors today, or we’re going to kick the doors down tomorrow” ("More Minority Students, Faculty Urged at UCI," Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1989). Asian-American students went on a 35-day hunger strike to establish the Department of Asian-American Studies in 1993 ("UCI Needs an Asian-American Program," May 24, 1993). Today’s student efforts represent a source of creative energy and will strengthen the units and the university. We call on the administration to continue support at UCI for cutting-edge interdisciplinary work that benefits the entire campus, and to respond with constructive engagement so that a time of crisis is not made an excuse to reverse decades of curricular and intellectual progress at UCI.

Reading Guide for the “Needs Attention” Memo

(Via We Are UCI)

A memo titled General Comments on Units Designated “Needs Attention”was sent to Humanities chairs and directors. The following is a very well articulated analysis of the memo, written by one of our brilliant UCI grad students.

You can access the “Needs Attention” memo here:

http://ucleaks.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/documentzero.pdf (Note: I do not know who put this up. I don’t know how long this link will be good.)

The following is a “Reading Guide” I drafted for this memo. The acronyms are explained.

Hello,

My name is Tetsuro Namba and I am a graduate student in the Comparative Literature program here at UCI. I am passing around the “Needs Attention” memo because I believe that everyone who has an interest in the humanities should be aware of the situation we are facing. We all know that the state of California continuously cuts its support for the UC’s. But these budget cuts are not distributed equally; some parts of the university suffer more than others. The School of Humanities (SOH) is facing a 4.8% reduction in its budget; this comes out to $1.3 million. On top of this cut, there is still a $500,000 budget cut shortfall from last year. So the SOH must, altogether, cut $1.8 million by next year. Bear in mind that on 11/28, the UC regents met and approved of salary raises for lawyers, managers and administrators, including a 9.9% raise for UCI’s vice chancellor of planning and budget, Meredith Michaels. We are looking at an institution that finds nothing wrong with giving a raise to someone in charge of budgets, while at the same time cutting those very budgets.

However, what is most distressing about this memo is not the amount of money being cut, but how these budget cuts are being used by the administration to actively reshape the humanities at UCI. These sorts of budget decisions are made by the office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost (the EVC/P). Over the past year, the EVC/P assessed every department according to a variety of factors, with each department given points that ultimately designate it as either “Protect,” “Maintain,” or “Needs Attention.” “Needs Attention” here means having your budget cut. In other words, it’s not an affectionate attention. It’s a punitive attention. So far, the departments and programs that have been deemed “Needs Attention” are: African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages and Literature, French & Italian, German, and Women’s Studies.

The “Needs Attention” memo attached was sent out by the EVC/P in order to explain how they have made these assessments. The assessment is based heavily on numerical factors used to determine the “productivity” of departments. Two important factors used are the majors-to-faculty ratio (“Total Majors per FTE”) and the number of students actually taught by faculty in classrooms. This latter is referred to on the document as the “SCH(PHD)/Filled FTE,” which stands for Student Credit Hours (Payroll Home Department) per Filled Full Time Equivalent. “Student Credit Hours” is the unit of measurement used to calculate students in classrooms. “Full Time Equivalent” is the unit of measurement used to designate faculty members (awkwardly labeled so it can encompass joint appointments). So a “Total Majors per Filled FTE” number represents how many majors there are, on average, for every faculty member within that department. So, the school average of 15.3:1 Total Majors per Filled FTE means that for every professor at UCI there are 15.3 students. These numbers are important as departments and programs are being urged by administration to teach as many students as they can, both in classes and as majors in the field.

As students, we should be concerned that “productivity” is measured numerically in this way. Departments are being encouraged to have more students per professor. The administration wants faculty members to teach large numbers of students so that it can process as many students as it can for the fewest instructors. But a higher student to faculty ratio means that every student gets less attention and energy from our mentors and teachers. It is in our interest—in the interest of the quality of our education—to have lower student to faculty ratios. While we have many interests in common with the administration and the school in general, our interests don’t always coincide. Here we are directly at odds: we want the best quality education for our dollar, they want to cut costs as much as they can.

However, this purely numerical calculation is not the only factor in the assessment of departments. Compare, for instance, the “productivity” of the East Asian Literature and Languages (EALL) department with History (bottom of p. 2). History is a unit that is “Protected,” while EALL is one that “Needs Attention.” The reasoning for this discrepancy is noted on p. 3-4. EALL is seen by the EVC/P as a department whose “focus” is hard to determine—not surprisingly, since it covers Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. These are fields that look to places and histories with radically different pasts and particularities (interestingly, not unlike the History department). The other reasons why EALL is a unit that “Needs Attention” is that it is very small, and that, furthermore, the School of Humanities is not interested in EALL. This latter point is very interesting, as EALL is a very popular department. The Korean language classes, for instance, are always full. From a purely numerical standpoint, there isn’t really a reason to cut the budget of EALL and not cut history as well. Instead, EALL is being cut because money has to be cut somewhere, and it simply doesn’t fit the image the administrators have of the humanities.

In other words, if you look beyond the numerical analysis, a specific image of the humanities emerges in this memo, and this image is based on a limited understanding of the values of humanistic research. For instance, small departments and programs that are interested in interdisciplinary work suffer disproportionately. This is particularly alarming for those students who are interested in less traditional programs or more obscure fields. It is very telling to glance over which programs have been deemed the least “productive” (the table on p. 4)—all are associated with minority groups and are programs with histories of struggles for recognition and inclusion, even at Irvine. Our Asian American Studies program, for instance, was formed only after students here went on a concerted campaign and hunger strike. We cannot assume that it is by mere coincidence that a program that had to fight for its right to exist in the first place has been targeted for budget reductions that threaten its very existence and viability. Of course, it would not be accurate to call the EVC/P assessment racist or sexist. It is simply conservativist, with perhaps a hint of xenophobia.

In short, the entire assessment and budget reduction process set a dangerous precedent. What we are witnessing is how the humanities at UCI are being institutionally forced into a more traditional and intellectually conservative position. In fact, this entire memo evidences an aggressive will to ignorance. Take, for example, the paragraph at the bottom of page 1, where the memo acknowledges that its form of numerical accounting unfairly disadvantages interdisciplinary programs, yet they do not bother to try to change their method of assessment to account for it. It seems that if the EVC/P does not understand what your department or program does, then it will not take measures to understand it or assess it fairly, and your department will suffer. In other words, the failings of the assessor are assumed to be failings on the part of the assessed. Though this assessment attempts to appear objective and numerical, the comparison between History and EALL shows that these sorts of funding decisions can be and often are made on other grounds. They are made with certain assumptions about what is or is not legitimate humanistic research. This latter question is, of course, one that will always haunt the humanities, but it is a question that should be addressed by the students and faculty of the humanities, not by administrators.

The older, more established departments, such as English, History, Classics and Philosophy, have long traditions, and these traditions do protect them from the more severe budget cuts—for the moment. The question for these protected departments is: how long will it be before the administration decides that it doesn’t understand why people study novels at all? Or obscure historical minutia? Or minor points of logical deduction? In other words, the conservativist demand that this kind of assessment puts on the humanities is antithetical to humanistic research, if not academic research in general. Through these sorts of “productivity” assessments and budget reductions, the administration is taking a very active role in shaping the future of the humanities at UCI. And this is a trend that should trouble all of us.

If you are reading this letter, you are invited to a meeting Thursday of Week One of Winter Quarter at 6PM in HH 105. We will then decide on how best to respond to this situation and what viable courses of action are available to us. Any student of any year or program, graduate or undergraduate, is invited.

Please pass along this memo, this reading guide, and this invitation.

In solidarity,

Tets

Comparative Literature Graduate Student, 4th year

This document was drafted 11/25 – 11/29, 2011. It has benefited from clarifying feedback and information from multiple sources. But any errors or misunderstandings are mine. TN