From (the Edge of) the Chair's Seat

One area of economic growth is providing the proverbial bright spot in this recessionary twilight. Books. Or at least some kinds of books. Even as the entertainment industry suffers, romance novel sales are up and are expected to rise even more, cresting beyond their 2007 level of $1.375 billion in revenues. It’s not hard to guess why romances do well during times of financial contraction, what with their affordable prices, offers of escape, and reliably happy endings. Other readers may turn to head-on confrontation rather than avoidance of reality. This year, for its ninth annual New Student Reading project, Cornell University is buying copies of John Steinbeck’s 1939 Dust-Bowl novel, The Grapes of Wrath, for all entering freshman and will hold a series of events in the fall to discuss the Joads and their struggles. The cover of the Penguin Classics version that the Cornell community will be reading features a stylized drawing of a man standing in a denuded (but not harshly so) landscape with (surprisingly cheerful-looking) clouds billowing in the background, a cover that softens the unremitting grimness of the text. I first read Steinbeck’s novel during a summer visit to the grandparents, where I found it on a bookshelf amidst the trashy novels my Nana favored; it had a lurid bodice-ripper cover, loosely based on the one vaguely salacious scene in the novel, a cover that, now that I think of it, gets us back to those romance novels. Maybe fantasy and reality aren’t always at odds.

I’ll let you keep your eye on the fantasy-reality meter as you read the next few paragraphs in which I try to describe where the department stands at this juncture. First, faculty matters. We’ve made two excellent hires in Early Modern Literature and Culture and will be joined by our new colleagues, Adam Hooks and Blaine Greteman, in the fall. The Americanist search remains open and its fate unknown. On the advice of the Executive Committee and in recognition of our most pressing needs, especially on the graduate level, I resubmitted our request for a 20th-century Americanist in response to the Dean’s call for proposals for one hire per department for 2009-10. I also took that opportunity to remind the administration that our current search for an Americanist, which drew some 400 applications, led to fourteen MLA interviews, and brought three candidates to campus, is still ongoing. Since we are making the same request again, it would certainly be cost-effective to allow us to hire from our current pool, thus saving the considerable time and expense of running a new search from scratch. I’ll let you know the results of that line of argument. Moving to matters germane to faculty who are already here, the Dean has made appointments with all DEOs for “Faculty Assessment Sessions” and in order to prepare, I’ve asked the salary committee (Dee, Mary Lou, and Linda) to read faculty CVs and 1-page summaries and offer me advice. While it continues to appear unlikely that there will be any pay raises for next year, I’m told that money may be available to deal with compression issues or other imbalances.

A month ago, our biggest financial worry was over our ability to support our graduate students. Happily, we have now managed to offer standard half-time TAships or other comparable support to all of our currently enrolled Ph.D. students and many in the MFA program. As is our customary practice, we are seeking support for out-of-aid Ph.D. students and for recent Ph.D.s. Against all expectations, we have come up with sufficient funding for entering classes in both the Ph.D. and MFA program, and are also cautiously admitting a few more (unfunded) M.A. students than we usually do, all of which is being dexterously handled by Judith Pascoe, as Director of Finances on the Ph.D. side and John D’Agata on the MFA wing. It seems accurate to say that our entering graduate classes will be smaller than in past years, but not drastically so.

Predictions about the effects of the downturn on undergraduate enrollments vary widely. I’ve heard optimistic reports that as the bargains they are, public institutions will see large freshman classes come fall, as well as rejoinders that if there is any enrollment growth it will be at community colleges, not flagship state research schools. As a constant buzz in the background, I keep hearing reminders that we need to “market our major”: if anyone has ideas for a winning ad campaign, please drop me your card.
 
The biggest uncertainty at the moment has to do with how much money will be available to support faculty and graduate student travel next year. It might be wise to think of holding off on commitments for travel to conferences and archives for 2009-10, until we know about funding—as we should by early summer. The good news is that we are in relatively good financial shape through June 30th of this year, so you can put in your expense reports for travel up to that point or for speakers you plan to bring to campus before then with full confidence of support. And be sure to check your calendars for the exciting events on the spring agenda, including this week’s British Women Writers’ Conference, which has been organized by a team of talented graduate students--Anna Swenson, LeDon Sweeney, Lynne Nugent, Laura Capp, and Bridget Draxler--and which features Teresa Mangum, Florence Boos, and Judith Pascoe among its distinguished speakers.

Finally, if neither romance novels nor Depression-era fiction suits your taste, the Irish Times argues that the best way to make it through the recession is to stock up on “thumping good reads” in the form of big, long page-turners, from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair to Gone with the Wind. If all else fails, the Times adds, a game of poker will do the trick, too.

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