Yale drops ball; students left to scramble

By David Sarno

Last week there was an academic emergency. Ever heard of one? Probably not—they only happen once or twice in a decade. Professor Sara Suleri-Goodyear, a renowned member of the English Department's senior faculty, was given leave for medical reasons. As a result, both of the classes she was teaching, a lecture and a seminar, were cancelled for the semester. Students were notified of the cancellations on Saturday morning, three full weeks after classes had started.

MARISA BASS/YH

As a student in the lecture, Postcolonial Literature, I was disappointed that the class had been cancelled. As a student at Yale University, I was absolutely dumbfounded.

Truth be told, I didn't think it was a big deal for the first few days. Things happen. Such is life. Move on. But in the midst of moving on (a process that included, among other things, frantically searching for a replacement course), I stopped to wonder if this is this really how it had to happen.

English Department officials were quick to nod when I mentioned the word "unavoidable" in reference to the cancellation. They insisted that "all alternatives were pursued," and that the response to the problem was colored by "unbelievably serious anticipation for affected students." The students, they said in earnest, "were the primary concern." If this was the case, then why did the English Department decide that 40 other students and I should be stranded without help in solving the monster problem we didn't create? Of all the various "alternatives" considered, why did they settle on passing it on?

Concerning "Short Term Medical Disability," the Faculty Handbook makes reference to "the employment of substitute instructors" as a possibility in the event of an illness. Obviously, Professor Suleri-Goodyear didn't have an understudy in the wings. Finding an available professor with her command of the material would be impossible. Nonetheless, the goal should have been to keep the class going, even if it meant finding someone who was not a genetic clone of the original teacher.

Does such a person exist? Of the thousands of English professors on the East Coast, or of the hundreds in Connecticut, or the hundreds in New Haven, were there none who had read all nine books on the syllabus and who might come up with something intelligent to say for a couple of hours every week and a substantial amount of money? The general response from the English Department was, "we couldn't think of anyone who could fill the spot." Several students in the class had brought up the possibility of continuing their TA sections as seminars, and an amenable TA delivered the idea to the bigwigs. Nix. If not TAs, then how about a seventh-year doctoral candidate? Or a qualified lecturer?

This problem is exceedingly rare. According to Registrar Barry S. Kane, "in my four years here, I've never encountered a class cancelled this late." Though four years isn't exactly an age, there are nearly 100 departments at Yale, with an average, conservatively, of 15 classes each per semester. That means Barry Kane has seen, in four years, the uncancelled completion of some 12,000 classes. You have to think that in this time several professors have gotten sick, maybe one died, and a couple probably fled the country. Yet no class was ever cancelled three weeks into the semester.

On a related note, there are a lot of other classes at Yale. Finding a replacement ought not to be too difficult. This class met Monday and Wednesday from 10:30 to 11:20, a very common time slot. The only problem is that out of 41 English classes, there is only one other that meets at the same time as the cancelled lecture. In Literature there are zero. In Humanities, one, but it's just the other English class cross-listed. Though I'm not an English major, I know some in the class, and the seniors among them are understandably unhappy with the cancellation. Of the five I spoke to, two decided to substitute Directed Reading, and one has not solved the problem yet. Other people from my section are in the same boat as I am: new class, midterm in a week, zero of five books read. No matter, though—we were assured by the Department not only that we were exempt from the add fee for a new class, but that we would have something called "ample time to make up work." Especially if we opted to take Science Fiction, Science Fact and learn all about time travel.

A silly hypothetical that I used to annoy all the English Department officials I talked to: what if the professor had been ill two weeks later? Unfair, I know. Completely different situation, so they couldn't answer esxactly. However, they seemed to agree that it would have been impossible to cancel the class at that time. Clearly, then, finding a substitute instructor is always possible. But, for the pain in the ass it would cause them to find one, three weeks into the semester wasn't late enough.

But, hung out to dry as we may be, I'm sure that everyone in Professor Suleri-Goodyear's classes is relieved to hear that the academic emergency left the English Department relatively unscathed.

David Sarno is a senior in Silliman.

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