Editorial

The future of the faculty

By Editorial Staff

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As our article on faculty hiring this week (“Emphasis on faculty hiring”) notes, 25 percent of Hamilton’s faculty is expected to retire in the next five years with another 19 percent within 10 years. Combined, that’s almost half in just a decade. Entire departments are changing radically, and many of the professors who have long been the core of them will be handing the reins to academics with new perspectives and priorities. This is a time of major change for the College.

Students have the opportunity to significantly shape this change as it occurs. Last semester, a number of students voiced their support for Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Reynaldo Ortiz-Minaya. They temporarily occupied Buttrick Hall, calling for the professor’s contract to be extended. While students became involved at a point when they could not influence his hiring, this action sets a standard for how seriously students should take their opportunity to influence the make-up of faculty. 

Every department invites concentrators to meet candidates for open positions and encourages them to attend and evaluate sample classes. Students are also asked to write reviews of professors eligible for tenure as part of that process. 

We call on our fellow students to take every single hiring seriously. If we want to increase faculty diversity, we must proactively contest every hire to that end. Whatever our values are, we must pursue them at every opportunity. The opportunities are growing ever more numerous, and student involvement must rise to meet them. This is the moment to make the future of the campus resemble what we want for it now.

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