Deane not reassuring
Dear Editors,
It is an alarming fact the ranking of Queen’s University continues to decline. U of T, McGill, UBC and others are holding steady or improving; Queen’s is not.
I do not find Principal Deane’s letter of excuses to alumni reassuring. This is not a sudden crisis, or about a rash of unfavourable headlines; it is the result of the continuing failure of the University to properly address its problems.
What is the University’s specific plan for the immediate future? That is what the entire Queen’s community wants to know.
Don Townson
Queen’s Journal alum 1955-60
I can only imagine what the Baders would think
Dear Editors, Principal Deane, Provost Evans, Vice Provost Watson, Dean Crow, Chancellor Murray and of the Board of Trustees,
I am forced to write by the current implementation by the Deans of Arts and Science of a prohibition on all courses of fewer than 10 students and the apparent lack of awareness of the consequences this action will have for Queen’s. While this prohibition may indeed make sense in some cases at a time when financial constraint is necessary for the University, its unthinking and unreasonable blanket application is going to have significant effects on both the academic capacity and the reputation of Queen’s. It is important that you be aware of these effects before allowing this to happen. You, as the senior officers of the University, should be clearly cognizant of what your officers at lower levels of the istration are actually doing and exactly how they will damage this institution, for which you are directly responsible. You frequently claim that it is your duty to preserve this institution. Here is a clear opportunity for you to take responsibility and do so by reversing and preventing this shamefully destructive activity.
I have devoted the past 35 years of my life to teaching, supervising, researching and istering at Queen’s; my spouse taught and istered at Queen’s for 30 years; and both my daughters are alumnae of Queen’s, so I do write from a perspective of longstanding engagement with this institution—longer than almost any of you—and interest in its well-being. In my years at Queen’s, I have taught literally thousands of undergraduate students; I have supervised, or currently do supervise, more than 40 graduate students, MAs and PhDs as well as post-docs. Over my career I have taken Queen’s name with me in presentations across Europe and widely in North America; my affiliation to Queen’s University has appeared on all my publications; and Queen’s is recognised as my home institution in my work as editor of a prestigious series of texts published by Harvard University Press (see https://domedieval.org/people/ ). All my scholarship has thus contributed directly or indirectly to building an international reputation for this university, an institution to which I have always been proud to belong and about which I have always spoken positively to colleagues from around the world, many of whom would never have heard of the place otherwise.
But one thing consistently links and makes possible every aspect of my teaching, research, and publication. That is a knowledge of the ancient, medieval, and modern Greek language. I was fortunate to learn Greek and Latin at school to a standard equivalent to a North American fourth year university student; Greek made possible my success as an undergraduate in Theology and religious studies; Greek made possible my PhD in Byzantine history; a knowledge of the documents, written in Greek and Latin, underpins every single undergraduate course I have ever taught on Late Antique, Byzantine, and Medieval History—as well, more directly, as the actual Greek language courses I have sometimes been able to offer; and my ability to supervise my graduate students at every level has been predicated on my knowledge of the Greek sources. All of my publications rely directly or indirectly on my ability to read Greek. And my translation and editorial work is of actual medieval Greek texts.
So it is with surprise and considerable dismay, really disbelief, that I discover the Deans of Arts and Science are planning to prevent any student at Queen’s from ever obtaining the capacity to do what I have spent my life doing: to acquire the fundamental skillset necessary to take part in the fields of academia with which I have been lucky enough to be associated. You senior s are in the habit of boasting that Queen’s academic mission is paramount and will never be abandoned. “At Queen’s our priority must always be the academic mission, nurturing state of the art research and providing an outstanding experience for our students. Doing that is no easy feat, but we stand among the best institutions in the world and that is not going to change. What we need and are pursuing is a strategy for sustainability, but what we are not doing and never will do, is to undertake this task at the cost of the academic mission,” to quote Principal Deane’s statement of this morning (my italics). Yet here, instead of enabling education, lower-level s, who fall under your authority and whose actions are your responsibility, are wilfully and deliberately depriving students of an opportunity they have enjoyed since the institution first opened its doors in the nineteenth century. It is true that not many students take more advanced Greek (and Latin) courses (they never ever have), but, if they are not offered at all, the bottom line is that no student from Queen’s will ever be able to enter, directly, into an advanced graduate program in Classics, Classical Archaeology, Ancient History, Medieval History, Renaissance History, Early Modern History, Early and Medieval Christian Theology or Church History, History of Science or History of Medicine prior to the modern era, or the History of any premodern Philosophy, –and there are doubtless others. And that means that no student from Queen’s will ever again be able to become a teacher, researcher, or publisher in any of these subjects without first having to spend two or three years somewhere else learning the basic language tools of their trade. And, with that knowledge, how many students interested in any of these fields will want to come to Queen’s in the first place? Why would they?
Coupled with the loss of other languages that are threatened (it’s not just the ancient languages which these people are jettisoning), Queen’s will become a cultural backwater, “a glorified high school” as one student recently put it in horror. The damage done already is considerable. Every one of my own distinguished colleagues around the world, every one of the colleagues of the faculty of the Classics Department, – professors at places like Harvard, Princeton, Oxbridge, Edinburgh, Vienna, Athens, to name but a few – not to mention at most other Canadian universities, has been made aware of what is being done here in your name. I cannot imagine that it is the sort of publicity you want for our ‘brand’; I cannot imagine it is creating the sort of reputation that will cause anyone to speak highly of Queen’s; I cannot imagine it is the sort of move that will encourage parents interested in anything to do with culture or the humanities, or even a broad learning, in sending their children to be educated here anymore; I cannot imagine it is something which will encourage donors interested in the same things from giving generously of their money to Queen’s—one can only imagine what Alfred and Isabel Bader would be thinking.
So you are making choices here. You are responsible for the decisions being made in your name by your underlings. You are responsible for the damage being done to this institution at present, to its reputation, and to its future. For goodness’ sake wake up! Look, outside your bubble! Listen to what people have to say who are not in the circle of your cronies and dependents but who actually do have the well being of this place at heart and who, like me, have devoted their lives to doing their best to enhance the quality of Queen’s and its reputation! Yes, serious financial trouble requires serious action, but not action that in its blundering insensitivity and short-sightedness does irreparable and long-term damage to the very Institution you are trying to save. Please do what’s best for this university and stop these petty, uncultured, barbarian bureaucrats from harming Queen’s without, apparently, even being aware of what they’re doing!
Yours sincerely,
Richard Greenfield
Professor, Department of History, Queen’s University
Co-Editor, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, Byzantine Greek Series (Harvard University Press)
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