For the past eight semesters, students at Georgetown have struggled for a few precious seats in a class called Literature of Peace. This fall, however, the University will offer no such class and Professor Colman McCarthy will not be teaching. Outraged students are now organizing and circulating petitions, but these groups should be reevaluating the target of their attention: the adjunct professor system.
McCarthy is an icon on campus and the social justice community beyond. A writer for the Washington Post since 1968, McCarthy now speaks at over 20 colleges and universities every year and founded the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, D.C. His Literature of Peace course has been immensely popular among students. It seems as though he leaves a deep impact on everyone he comes in contact with.
“He speaks at every type of college and conference about his work, but he’s more than just talk,” said Sarah Audelo (SFS ‘06), a student in his class this spring. “He lives and shares his beliefs by educating others; he teaches these peace courses for free at local public high schools.”
The indignation emanating from parts of the student body is a result of a slew of misconceptions. Professor McCarthy is a part-time adjunct professor in the Justice and Peace Program. Applications for his position in the program are reviewed each semester, and elective classes are typically rotated. (Ultram) In fact, McCarthy has been invited to teach his class eight semesters in a row, making his class the most-taught elective course in the history of the program. “Mr. McCarthy is not being fired,” explained Professor Henry Schwarz, head of the Program Steering Committee. “His class is not being cut. There is no philosophical disagreement between us.” Schwarz said that McCarthy will be teaching his class this summer, and that there is nothing to keep him from reapplying for the spring semester.
Students, then, should not be opposing this as a single case issue, but as a broader problem of the University: The adjunct professor position carries no commitment for renewal. Each semester, the Steering Committee judges each applicant’s course descriptions, syllabi and evaluations by faculty and students. However, applicants can also be denied on the basis of “the curricular needs of the Program as it grows and evolves,” as Schwarz said. Because it is so difficult to adapt core courses in any program or department, when the time for change comes it is typically the elective courses and their respective professors that are shuffled around.
“At some point people just have to trust us to make these decisions,” says Schwarz. “These decisions are ours to make.”
Rather than protest after the fact, students need to make sure that they become invested in these decisions as well.
