Dear USM Community,
I don’t know about many things USM, but the faculty of the English department must have far superior insight and an intellect that can’t be matched. Why else would they deny the contracts of two of the favored department teachers? I do not know Margaret Reimer but can speak at lengths of Jura Avizienis.
The department claims that Jura will be dismissed because of great reviews, winning the Provost’s Teaching Fellowship, and her admirable performance in the classroom. Oh, you’ll have to excuse me, I seem to have mixed the reasons for keeping her with the reasons for dismissing her. Jura will be dismissed because, well, there doesn’t seem to be any good explanation for her dismissal. We are seeing the result of office politics gone bad. As surely as I am writing this, the English department fogies are getting together to come up with a generic defense for the spineless decision in denying her contract. This basically comes down to the threat of the already tenured faculty of the department and their fear of change.
Jura is also a member of the Honors program and I can’t help think that this may have something to do with her dismissal. My first visit to my counselor at USM was to drop a class for an honors course. My councilor’s response was “oh you’re one of those.” Could Jura be facing the same negative stigma that I faced? The English faculty has a standard way they want students to learn to write, and in Honors we learn something different. One could argue that we learn a more expressive and less standardized way to write. Could Jura’s honors faculty status have in some way offended the staff?
We may never know the real reason for Jura’s contract denial but rest assured we will not go away. I urge everybody enrolled in an English course to ask your instructor about the denied contracts. Don’t settle for the rehearsed generic answer you surely will get, but push for the real reason Jura will be jobless next year. Oh, and my counselor’s response, when I asked her what she meant about being “one of those”, was “life around here is going to be real difficult.” Hmm. I wonder.
Signed,
HODGE