Hamilton College Alumni for Governance Reform

George Rockas comments upon receiving an invitation to:
________________________________________
A reminder to join the Boston Alumni Association
of Hamilton College for

Holiday Pops!

Sunday, December 17, 2006, 3 p.m.
$92
Only 8 tickets remain!

Symphony Hall
301 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
617-266-1492
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Is going to the Pops a way of celebrating the disgraceful actions of Hamilton College in not allowing the Alexander Hamilton Center to move forward ? It is a dark day for the College. I urge you all to withhold all support for the College until the President and Board of Trustees resign. They endow a chair for a plagiarist, they want to put a murderer on the faculty, they ask a madman to speak on campus and now this! ENOUGH!

Bob Paquette's statement to the Spectator reflects the intellect and class that he continually exudes..Hamilton may have placed the AHC on waivers, but my bet is the entity will end up on another team's roster-- and a winning team at that!...

Mr. Erlanger,

I cannot join in your lauding of Prof. Paquette's not-too-veiled threat to take his marbles and go elsewhere.

To me, that doesn't show class at all--that indicates an intractability which is not directed towards the one thing I would assume that we as alumni/alumnae share--the continued advancement of our alma mater (whether actual or by default).

Ted Eismeier told me that the one thing I could be assured of is the devotion of the faculty as a whole to Hamilton and its students. Sentiments such as those exhibited in Prof. Paquette's last sentence above are not indicative of devotion to the College or its students.

Frankly, I am disappointed that any alum would support the suggestion that such an ambitious scholarly enterprise go to another institution, and I am especially disturbed that Prof. Paquette would make such a statement.

Penny Watras Dana, K'78

Penny:

Allegiance is given when earned...

How depressing. Just before I opened your email, I received one reminding me to send Christmas greetings to a friend who is on a tour of duty in Iraq, leading a brigade that is guarding the prisons in and around Baghdad. While we Americans may debate the efficacy of our mission there, we do what we can to wish our troops well and hope for a safe return. Meanwhile, it seems quite inappropriate that an academic institution here at home should be vitiating our First Amendment rights under such circumstances. It certainly begs the question as to who are the enemies of freedom.
Gordon Boyd '68

Mr. Erlanger,

I think the fact that 77 faculty members (out of a total of 173 full-time faculty) expressed concern about the governance provisions should give us all pause.

It should also have induced Prof. Paquette to try a little harder at working out the problems of the verbiage. What, I would ask, does he find so conceptually wrong with the College retaining ultimate control over the AHC?

Was nothing learned from the events of two winters ago? Would you prefer to give control of this entity ultimately to outsiders?

My allegiance to my default alma mater was earned by the four years I spent there (one of my two majors was a Hamilton major). My loyalty is not to any individual, but to the institution.

To my mind, there may have been some missteps during the unfolding of this affair, as reported elsewhere on this blog. But I would have to agree with Stuart Scott, when he says, as quoted in that time-line, "but there is no question, everyone agrees. It’s a matter of working out the language.”

It should have been a fairly straight-forward matter. And given the lessons which should have been learned from the Kirkland Project affair, all parties should have shared a similar motivation, if the goal of each side were indeed, to bring the AHC to fruition on the Hamilton campus.

Perhaps the faculty should have been brought in to the process earlier on. 20/20 hindsight is marvelously perfect! Perhaps there was reluctance to do so, given the sometimes strained relations amongst the faculty, as evidenced by the events of two years ago.

Nonetheless, the choices presented were to: seemingly disenfranchise a significant proportion of the faculty by allowing the language to stand (in addition to giving ultimate control to whomever); or to negotiate language changes (which keep ultimate control with Hamilton).

To adults purportedly working towards the same goal, the choice is obvious.

I am not condoning or excusing any possible missteps made--and I really don't want to join in the "Monday morning quarterbacking". But I think this situation could have been avoided entirely, and everyone could have been made happy.

I stand by my previous statements.

I think the administration was smart in shutting down Prof. Paquette's center as an on-campus operation. The College is on the cusp of being regarded as a top tier institution. The people that US News consults in annual survey are not likely to look kindly on the kind of diversity on campus that the center would entail. To be sure a very small group of alumni might object to the change of course. I personally liked the idea of the center and am disappointed that it to be cancelled, but, to be recognized as an elite, a college has to be pristine on the PC front. That is simply the world we live in today.

You might want to reconsider the elite part: take a look at the James Madison Program at Princeton. Its been on our page of Important Links since inception of the site. Or at the Center for the American Founding Amherst. Or other initiatives at Colgate, Brown and others. Dartmouth, least prior to the implosion of AHC, considered themselves competitively behind the curve for want of one. When was the last time that was even conceivable in the context of Hamilton?

Hamilton is simply more comfortable with the regressive monotones of the Diversity and Social Justice Project and the likes of Ward Churchill, Susan Rosenberg, Annie Sprinkle,and most recently, Peggy Seegar, the self descripbed "activist with an attitude."

I'd urge HB to look at the James Madison Program himself. First, it is located WITHIN a department at Princeton; second, the entire Executive Committee is made up of Princeton faculty. Although it does have an Advisory Council consisting of outsiders, that Council does not appear to have the kind of authority to determine the direction of the Program that the AHC's proposed "Board of Overseers" did. Bottom line: Princeton maintains control over the Program.

Had the AHC proposed a structure like that of the James Madison Program, they would be in business today.

Diogenes should read the 2/23/2006 issue of the Nation magazine.
"Because the [James Madison] program is largely autonomous, it remains unclear who will succeed [Robert] George as its leader, and how that decision will be reached--and whether any thought has been given to these matters either by the program or Princeton."

The advisory council is composed of outsiders.
George names replacements.
Yes, the chairman of the Department of Politics approves, but he is a rubber stamp.

Princetonian:

It took a while to track down the article: I don't normally read The Nation, and had thus missed it; and the date you gave was wrong (it was actually 3/13/2006). But I've read it now, and take back my earlier claim. The article makes it clear that no reasonable college would want anything to do with a group like the James Madison Program. It also makes clear why the AHC was a potentially dangerous institution, and justifies the decision by the trustees (if that's who made the decision) to scuttle it.

I'd recommend that everyone here read that article: "Princeton Tilts Right," The Nation, 3/13/2006.

Thanks, Princetonian, for setting us straight.

"no reasonable college would want anything to do with a group like the James Madison Program"

We note the possible exceptions of places like Princeton or Stanford or Ahmerst or Brown or Colgate or maybe Dartmouth. You may be correct in redefining Hamilton's peer group.

_____________________________

"the AHC was a potentially dangerous institution"

We confess to having a different concept of danger, but the comment is instructive. We quote Interested Observer: "From what I can tell, this center did not have the autonomy of the Hoover Institute. Yet that case is instructive. Hoover has remained true to its mission because it is removed from faculty influence. "

It is interesting how monolithically many view Hamilton's 'faculty' particularly in light of the facts that

a) the Founders included the President; the Dean of Faculty; 3 senior respected and tenured faculty; and (constructively) a former Charter Trustee of some 16 years, currently a Life Trustee for some ~ 6 years.

b) the fact that the 'faculty' proposed changes that were/would have been wholly unacceptable to the faculty Founders and the donor? I infer The Alexander Hamilton Center for Social Justice and Diversity was not quite the intent of either the founders or the donor.

c) no one on the 'faculty' raises the issue of the 'academic freedom' of the faculty Founders to conduct a programmatic initiative which had been approved by the President and the Dean of Faculty.

What is dangerous in my view is that the actionable scholarly aspirations of Hamilton seem now seem limited to the delirium of Peggy Seegar, our 'activist with an attitude'. For whatever reasons, the trustees apparently are willing to let it so stand.

HB:

Ah, yes, “scholarly aspirations of Hamilton seem now seem limited to the delirium of Peggy Seegar [sic], our ‘activist with an attitude.’” Let’s see: in the past few weeks, the website has announced, to pick a few things at random, that Patrick Reynolds was reappointed editor of Invertebrate Biology; that Austin Briggs has written an article on James Joyce; that Professor Rand Carter has spoken on site restoration in Venice; that Hong Gong Jin has given a talk on Chinese language instruction; that Nicholas Tampio has spoken on Kant and Islam; that Jay Williams has lectured on Thomas Nast and Winslow Homer; that Debra Boutin has lectured at a Computational and Combinatorial Geometry Workshop; that Misaki Kamiya has lectured on “Negation, Quantifier, and EPP Movement in Nominalization in Japanese”.…

Then, too, Hamilton has hosted Rouben Cholakian speaking on Margueritte de Navarre; Doug McAdam, sociology professor at Stanford; Dr. Peng Hwa Ang, a member of a UN Working group on the Internet; Pulitzer prize-winner Alan Taylor; NY Times columnist Joseph Berger…not to mention Jonah Goldberg, editor of the National Review On Line; and many, many others. There was a performance of Mendelssohn’s Saint Paul by the Oratorio Society and a rare production of Witzkiewicz’s The Water Hen and a weekend-long symposium on contemporary music.

I think you have blinders on. Hamilton remains a miraculous place, with plenty of intellectual diversity and plenty of high-quality scholarship.

We agree many wonderful things go on at Hamilton, and you are correct in that we should not neglect them. Our direct concern is the unhappy process by which we come to the result that the AHC is not going to be one of them.

What are your thoughts on the notion of academic freedom of the Sponsors?

Lastly, how does Hamilton rank in scholarship vis its peers or the NESCAC schools?

I am glad to see an acknowledgment that there are many good things happening on the Hill.

I fail to understand how the "academic freedom of the Sponsors" could be impinged in any way, by ensuring that in the worst case scenario (as occurred with the Kirkland Project), ultimate control would reside with the College. I would appreciate some illumination on this issue.

I do not believe that the establishment of the AHC at Hamilton is a dead issue--I would hope that this is a moment for all parties to step back and reflect. Perhaps the passage of some time is what is required before effective communication of reasonable desires can be achieved.

Penny Watras Dana, K'78

This should be posted. Article in Friday's Spectator. It answers Penny's question. The founders did acknowledge "ultimate control."

The College has announced that plans for the Alexander Hamilton Center (AHC) will be suspended indefinitely. Administrators, trustees and the three faculty founders of Center came to the agreement after several weeks of negotiations concerning the governance structure of the Center as it was described in the charter.
The AHC was designed by Sidney Wertimer Professor of History Douglas Ambrose, Elias W. Leavenworth Professor of Economics James Bradfield, and Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History Robert Paquette as a center for the study of, according to the charter, “freedom, democracy and capitalism as these ideas were developed and institutionalized in the United States and within the larger tradition of Western culture.” The AHC planned to sponsor lectures, colloquia and conferences centered on annual thematic programming as well as awarding an annual junior fellowship to a doctoral candidate or postdoctoral scholar. Hamilton alumnus and trustee Carl Menges ’51 announced a $3.6 million donation to the Center in October.
President Stewart and Dean of the Faculty Joe Urgo approved the proposal for the AHC in August, primarily, according to Urgo, because of the programming and kinds of activities it would bring to the College. On September 6 the College formally announced its support of the formation of the Center on campus.
In its October 20 issue, The Spectator reported on concerns raised by faculty members about the governance structure of the AHC at the October 3 faculty meeting. A majority of faculty members expressed opinions that the Center would be too autonomous. The trustees and the Committee on Academic Policy (CAP) expressed similar concerns, leading the administration to look more closely at the charter and discuss the issues with the founders. “It became very clear that the founders had a very different idea of what the Center would be. [President Stewart] and I envisioned a Center of Hamilton College, where the founders saw it as really separate from the governance structure of the College,” said Urgo. “You reach an agreement on principles, but when you start talking about the details you may start to disagree.”
Both the faculty and the trustees believed the Center should go forward at Hamilton because of the educational opportunities. However, they were concerned that it would be too autonomous and separate from the College. “The trustees were extremely enthusiastic towards the Center; there was no disagreement on the value for the College,” said Urgo. “They simply asked for clarification of the governance structure.”
Elihu Root Peace Fund Associate Professor of Women’s Studies Vivyan Adair expressed a similar opinion in regards to the faculty. “From the very beginning, the faculty was asking for nothing more than an accountable governance structure for the AHC; nothing more and nothing less. No one I spoke with wanted the program to not go forward. Now, many in the press are making the faculty look as if they’re complicit at the very least. Faculty had nothing to do with the decision other than to suggest very early in the process that the charter was flawed,” she said.
During discussions following the October faculty and trustee meetings it became clear that the founders and the administration had different perceptions of Hamilton’s role in the governance of the AHC. “Hamilton has an ideal of shared governance, a community we all share…we talk about things a lot. With any program or initiative, we want it to be within these structures. The most valuable thing we have on College Hill is our community. Having a center not connected to the governance…is antithetical to that ideal,” said Urgo.
On November 3 the administration presented the AHC founders with, according to Urgo, a dozen or so revisions to the original charter, which were formulated by trustees, Urgo and Stewart. “We offered a clarified document…the founders did not accept that. It was not what they had in mind and not what they wanted to do,” said Urgo. The founders responded by creating a revised proposal that, according to Paquette, they believed answered the areas of concern raised by the trustees. The founders’ included the following insertion:
“The Board of Overseers of the AHC ensures that its policies and operation comply with the resolutions of the Trustees of Hamilton College and their fiduciary responsibilities. The founders of the AHC recognize that violation of those resolutions, disregard of those responsibilities, or deviation from the center’s scholarly mission as clearly defined in the charter may result in the removal of the AHC’s executive director from his office by the president of Hamilton College and the Board of Trustees or the discontinuance of the center’s funding by the College or both. This provision of the charter is irrevocable.”
Urgo explained why this concession was unacceptable to the trustees and administration. “The problem with that compromise is that the only option it gives the president and the dean is to shut down the center entirely,” he said. Urgo compared this arrangement to his jurisdiction over the English department. As it stands, Urgo hires professors and works with them to create the curriculum, which he ultimately has to approve. He works with the faculty to work out disagreements and problems. Urgo compared this insertion in the charter as giving him jurisdiction only to eliminate the entire English department in times of difficulty and controversy, rather than discussing and working through problems.
At a meeting on November 22, administrators and the AHC founders agreed that these issues could not be resolved and creation of the Center at Hamilton would be postponed indefinitely. In an email to the faculty, Urgo wrote, “We have agreed throughout our conversations that the Hamilton community would have been enriched by more professional contact with colleagues at other colleges…Where we have not reached agreement is on the governance structure of a center devoted to these aims on campus, its relationship to the College administration, to the Board of Trustees of Hamilton College, and to the wider, external community of scholars and supporters.”
Paquette issued a statement to supporters of the AHC. “I regret to inform you that the Hamilton College administration has retreated from its previous agreement, publicly announced on 6 September, to support the creation of the AHC on campus. I have no intention, at this time, of pointing a finger of blame…Please know that I regard the recent events as the end of chapter, not end of story. The administration’s backpedaling was not unanticipated by the founders of the AHC. The center continues to exist; it has financial backing; it is an attractive scholarly product that may well attract interest from others.”
In a November 29 Utica Observer-Dispatch article, Paquette stated that the Center may move off campus if the founders cannot reach an agreement with the college. The article quoted Paquette saying, “The center lives, on paper. It has money to support it. It has even more money than the $3.6 million. Other people are willing to help, to the tune of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.”
Urgo stressed that the administration would like to go ahead with some of the planned programming of the AHC as soon as next semester. “We are hoping to receive some of the programming that was described in the charter. We still have an agreement that the programming is wonderful; these are three of our most respected faculty members,” he said. However, in the Observer-Dispatch article, Urgo also stated that “plans for a cohesive center are no longer in play, at least for now.” Funds already raised or donated to the AHC through Hamilton will be returned, according to Urgo, unless the donors want to slate their donations for other resources. Donors could, however, repledge their money to the Center should it follow through with its plans to move off campus.
Urgo stressed that there were no hard feelings between the administration and the AHC founders. “[The decision] was very cordial and amicable. My respect remains very high for these three faculty members,” he said. As far as the image of the College, Urgo said this is “not a catastrophe.” “We are looking for the next opportunity, going about business as an academic institution,” he said.

For "Student Reporter":

Thank you for making this post. Please see my comment in the new posting of this article elsewhere on this blog.

Penny