When Paul Bolin, head of Penn State’s art education department, was given the task of hiring two tenure-track professors, he did what he thought was customary procedure: He went straight to the students.
But Bolin — who had never before conducted a faculty search — didn’t know that he was setting a precedent for the art education department of Pennsylvania State University when he had volunteer students interview candidates seeking tenure-track faculty positions.
“I didn’t have anything to go on,” Bolin said. “I thought this was the way all searches were done, but evidently not.
“(The interviews) opened the blinds of conversation,” Bolin said. “They gave the candidates the sense of what’s on the students’ minds rather than have us as faculty project what’s on their minds.”
That was the complaint of some Northwestern students this week.
About 20 said on Monday they would start a letter-writing campaign to protest the departure of popular literature Prof. Christopher Larkosh.
Larkosh’s two-year appointment as a visiting assistant professor in the Hispanic studies department won’t be renewed despite students’ demands.
And during Winter Quarter at NU, students from South Asian Students Association and Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Association tried to be more involved in the hiring process by attending open forums given by two of four performance studies tenure-track candidates.
Avanthi Meduri, a visiting professor in the performance studies department, and Patrick Johnson, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, entertained questions from attendees.
Meduri said she was pleasantly surprised by the students’ presence.
“They get to speak their minds and say what they think and that’s a good thing,” she said.
NU students presented their recommendations to a search committee after the forums, and David Zarefsky, dean of the School of Speech, said he has extended an offer to a candidate but has not received an official response.
Vishal Vaid, Weinberg junior and outgoing president of SASA, helped mobilize students for the forum and said he wants to show his support at future candidate forums.
“It looked good and showed student interest,” he said. “These are the professors that are going to be teaching us. We should have more of a say.”
NU’s search for a performance studies professor also deviated from standard hiring procedures, which usually focus more on faculty assessment than on student opinion, said Marie Jones, an associate dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
But each department has latitude when hiring instructors, Jones said.
“There’s a certain amount of variation in departmental culture, but there are broad expectations,” she said.
After the Penn State interviews, Bolin encouraged students to contact the administration to express their opinions of the candidates. Bolin said no final decisions have been made.
Sean Thompson, a Penn State junior who attended two of the interview sessions, said he would have preferred official documentation of students’ candidate evaluations but said the interviews facilitated active two-way discussions.
“We get a feeling for what directions teachers might move in during class,” Thompson said. “From the student voice, the directors can get views, emotions and opinions that they might not be able to see from their professional standpoints.”
Some NU students said they hope to see even more interaction with candidates.
“Students are the people that have to take the classes,” said Tiffanye Davenport, a Weinberg sophomore. “It only makes sense to see if the person’s teaching style is compatible with the students.”
Other NU students viewed their input as unnecessary, preferring instead to leave the hiring to administrators and sticking to CTEC evaluations.
“If we fill out a CTEC saying that we hate (a professor), it should mean something,” said Scott Speiser, a Speech senior.
But Vaid argued that administrators should allow students to sit on the actual search committees.
“Recommendations are one thing,” he said. “Being actively involved in the selection process is another.”
