On Thursday night, over 120 North Park University students attended a public forum held by school administrators to discuss the future of the Global Studies Major at North Park University. The meeting was intended to be an open forum for students to discuss the future of the Middle East Studies program, which is a part of the Global Studies major. Several cultural studies programs, including the Middle East Studies Program, are currently being downsized. The meeting, despite administrators efforts, focused on the termination of Middle Eastern professor Don Wagner and an e-mail stating the Global Studies major would be terminated.
The Termination of a Professor
Throughout the evening, school administrators responded to questions given to them by the event’s student moderators. Occasionally, questions were taken directly from the audience. At other times, students simply spoke out of turn. Students repeatedly asked throughout the evening about why Professor Don Wagner, the director of the university’s center for Middle Eastern studies was being fired.
The administration of NPU was under the impression that discussion of Professor Wagner’s employment at the university would not be a part of the forum. President David Parkyn said, “I think we had an expectation that this was to be a discussion of North Park’s commitment to multiculturalism... it could be a conversation about particular program areas, academic and co-curricular that were of interest to students and... that we would not talk about personnel.”
Two current students as well as one alumni were asked to open the forum with stories of their experiences with the Middle East Studies program and the Middle Eastern student association. All of their stories involved Professor Wagner, making it hard not to discuss “personnel”.
Even handouts provided by organizers gave a bulleted list of Don Wagner’s accomplishments, followed by a question: “How do we intend to fill this void?” Facebook was used to promote the event, and despite a revision by organizers to clarify the purpose of the event, Professor Wagner was still mentioned, mirroring the sentiments of the handouts given to attendees.
One of the event’s organizers, Rebecca Ewing, thinks there’s a difference between discussion of Wagner’s firing and the topic of the forum. She said, “In one sense you need to talk about the role that he played and how we can fill it... there’s a difference in talking about Don in the sense of what he does... and Don and why they fired him.”
The final question of the evening came from North Park student Brent Strobel. He asked, "...how can you possibly talk about a program without talking about the people that are currently in the program, the people that are behind the program, and the people that built the program?...”
President Parkyn responded by saying, "...I agree with you that people shape programs, I also want to say that a program that is fully dependent on an individual, is a pretty bad program... we need programs that are established on good curricular bases, and we find the right people to teach that curriculum, we don’t build a curriculum around an individual.”
The Termination of a Major
The administration explained that the university doesn’t intend to eliminate the Global Studies major at North Park, but students in the program voiced their concerns over an e-mail sent to all Global Studies majors that implied the program was over.
The e-mail explained that North Park’s Division of Cultural Studies voted to withdraw the major.
After the forum, President Parkyn explained that he was aware of the e-mail, but believed that it merely contained the opinion of someone as opposed to an official decision by the university.
He said, “I think the statement that came out was a statement from individuals, expressing their perspective, it was not an official statement on the part of the university or even some unit within the university.”
As it turns out, the e-mail, sent out on April 12th, was from the academic advisor to Global Studies majors, Cherie Meacham.
Cherie Meacham is also the director of the university’s Division of Cultural Studies which encompasses the Communication Arts, Foregin Language, Africana Studies, and English as a Second Language Departments at North Park University.
A follow up e-mail from Meacham was sent the day after the open forum at North Park. The e-mail explained that the major has not yet been officially terminated. The university’s Curriculum Committee has tabled the motion to close the major, “pending concrete evidence of support from the administration.”
In reference to her initial e-mail about the withdrawal of the major, Meacham explained that as director of the division, she is able to, “cite the loss of resident specialists in Asia and the Middle East, the restistance[sic] of the administration to provide porportional[sic] stipends for small language classes, and the denial of course proposals.”
