To sum up the story as best as I understand it at this point, Prof. Otteson was hired last year to run and revamp the Honors Program at YU. Everything seemed to be progressing well, and Otteson was quite popular among the students at YU, as his plans for the school were approved and he raised funds to support the program. However, other professors were apparently unhappy with Otteson, apparently primarily because of his political beliefs, and pressured the school to get rid of him; YU asked him to resign, despite a signed letter from over 50 students supporting Otteson. When questioning the school, the students were informed that his blog - Proportional Belief - played a sizable role in the decision.
One can read the blog and determine for themselves whether there is anything remotely controversial; I did a quick scan of my own and saw nothing that is even close to "over the line". He is discussing rather typical political and sociological issues and giving his own conservative viewpoint - nothing stronger than what one might hear on a typical radio talk show. Obviously, this Proportional Outrage blog is meant to play off Otteson's blog's name while demonstrating support for him; it has excellent links detailing much of the official correspondence and discussion regarding Otteson. It will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out, especially considering it is at YU.
How many students are in the Honors Program?
ReplyDeletewow, a post from ezzie
ReplyDeleteG - Good question. I'll try to find out.
ReplyDeleteStam - :P
also, questions to ask, is he leaving the college or is he staying as professor but just being relieved of his directorship of honors? who is taking his place?
ReplyDeleteTzvee - Unclear. I'm thinking he's being relieved completely, but I am trying to find out.
ReplyDeleteNo idea who is taking his place yet.
Ezzie--I read the open letter from the faculty online. The issues it raises have nothing to do with Conservative vs. Liberal politics--they have to do with academic politics. That means hiring professors with certain specialties rather than others, notifiying the faculty of departments before making certain moves, etc. I'm a grad student, and though it may be hard to believe that anyone cares about these issues, they do. Professor O. is a poor academic administrator: a) if he really did what they say he did in the letter; and b) he didn't realize it was going to make everyone furious.
ReplyDeleteAnon - Disagreed. Not only does the letter itself discuss pointedly the issues of politics, while claiming it is not the interest of the signers, it was made clear to students that the blog was a big issue. One need only to look at the SiteMeter for his blog to see a large spike around the same time this letter was written.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, as clear from the apology which followed that letter, the fault lied not at the feet of Otteson but the administration.
Dr. Otteson is the man. I've dealt with him on a few occasions, and he is extremely pleasant to deal with. He was extremely helpful with my proposed Senior Honors Thesis (which eventually got approved), a unique thesis that did not involve a research paper, but an art gallery. Whether the allegations are legitimate or not, I would be very disappointed to see Dr. Otteson go.
ReplyDeleteI am very disappointed in YU. That's all I have to say.
ReplyDeleteAnon - to respond to your comment about the open letter. Read the response from the Dean, too. If you look at them together, you realize that the admin, along with Dr. Otteson, addressed all the faculty's recommendations at the end of the letter. Then someone found the blog. It was only after this that Dr. Otteson was removed from his post. Seems someone wasn't happy with the Dean's response and wanted to turn up the heat on Dr. Otteson. Why? Could it be his personal politics?
ReplyDeletePersonal politics??? at YU???? Certainly, you jest! At an esteemed institution of YU's moral, ethical, and academic standards of excellence, certainly personal politics can NEVER be part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that many very very mediocre (at best)instructors and some of the dinosaurs that have caused the endemic petrification that has so characterized YU from who knows how long -- were feeling threatened when someone with true excellence was brought to the fore.
And the administration seems to want to sacrifice one dynamic person (and the $1.5 million grant he brought with him) to make their own lives a little easier in dealing with the rest of the faculty.
like they did with R' Brill. Student uproar was bigger then, and completely useless.
ReplyDeleteSo now a Catholic university in NJ has R' Brill. How is Dr Dauber as a teacher? He seems to teach the courses R' Brill used to.
Although, student input can help to get rid of a professor. There was one guy in CS, brilliant programmer, but a terrible person and a bad teacher. Student input helped push him out at his mid-tenure review (the only time one can be booted for bad teaching; final tenure decisions rest on research).
That was at Princeton, though, where they might take a different view of student responsibility. Also, it was 23 years ago, before colleges moved back to "in loco parentis".
He now teaches at another major university, where he had apparently changed his ways.
Good comments, all, thank you.
ReplyDeleteEzzie, I received an email today concerning the Otteson situation at YU. I posted about it:
ReplyDeletehttp://tiny.cc/otteson
If you'd like, I can also forward you the email, although I've copied entirely in the post.