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A Counter Proposal for the Department of Comparative Literature

A Three Year Plan

Presented in person to the L&S Administration, the Chancellor, the Provost and the Dean of the Graduate School

May - June, 2006; notations added August, 2006

Year I:
For AY of 2006-07, we propose two replacement searches at the Assistant Professor rank in the following areas of critical departmental need:

  • a comparatist working on contemporary world literatures and problems of globalization, with a preference for expertise in Asian languages and literatures;
  • a comparatist working on race and ethnicity from the ancient world to the mid-medieval periods, languages open.

For AY 2006 - 07, because of the termination (April, 2006) of a former C.L. faculty member, a faculty salary of $72,856 would be at the disposal of the College.

We will offer participation in Executive Governance to our two on-campus affiliates and to our international affiliate. [They have all three accepted as of June, 2006.] And, given some demonstration of good will and support on the part of the College, augmentation of our Affiliate Faculty from a community of interested scholars on campus will be enhanced. We will vigorously pursue that goal of an augmented Affiliate Faculty.

Year II:
In AY 2007 - 08, assuming two Assistant Professors are hired at $50,000 per position, the College nets a profit of $24,217 in the second academic year of this plan. ($72,856 + $51,361 = $124,217.)

The first two years of this plan for sustaining the Department of Comparative Literature, costs the College no new funding. It is a re-investment of FTE lines that are already in the Department.

In either Year II or Year III, we request permission to search for a third Assistant Professor.

Year III:
For AY 2008 - 2009, the investment by the College in the Department of Comparative Literature would be for a third Assistant Professor position that we have been requesting for the past seven years. (Please see our past requests to search; we also reference the recommendations of the 2003 Review Committee for support for the Department.)

 

In Year III, the College invests only $27,000 worth of new funding in the Department of Comparative Literature for a third Assistant Professor position.

Thus over a three year period, the College is asked to invest the modest sum of $27,000 in new funding in the sustaining and improving of the Department of Comparative Literature.