Although International Comparative Studies has been at Duke for more than 40 years the program now faces questions about administrative commitment to the program and sustainability amid changes in leadership.
The recent questions have emerged since Frances Hasso, former director of ICS and associate professor of women’s studies, decided not to continue as director of the program following the 2014-15 academic year. Hasso’s hiring in 2010 was intended to give the program more stable leadership at a time when its organization was dependent on faculty from other areas of the University, explained Robin Kirk, faculty co-chair of the Executive Committee of the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute and member of the ICS Program Committee.
ICS was still just a major when Hasso was hired, but it has since been approved as a program that can make direct faculty hires—though it is not yet a full-fledged department. According to the Duke Faculty Handbook, in almost all cases only departments are allowed to hire tenure-track faculty. But Hasso and others feel that if programs such as Women’s Studies and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies are allowed to hire tenure-track faculty, ICS should also be allowed to do the same in order to secure a more stable future.
“The advantage of a department is you have a relatively deep bench,” Kirk said. “The idea had been with Dr. Hasso coming on as director that you had that dedicated person doing it. When she decided not to continue, that certainly does leave a hole.”
Cheri Ross, associate professor of the practice of ICS, was named co-director of ICS and director of undergraduate studies to provide leadership after Hasso decided not to continue as director of the program in June. Ross resigned the post in July, however, after accepting a position at the University of California, Davis, Hasso and Dean of Social Sciences Linda Burton confirmed. Ross’ decision to leave the University has not yet been publicly announced.
Because of Ross’ departure, Burton and Lee Baker, dean of academic affairs, have been acting as interim co-directors of ICS, with Senior Lecturing Fellow Catherine Mathers acting as director of undergraduate studies. Although Burton wrote in an email that the recent changes seen in ICS “are not unusual,” Jocelyn Olcott, associate professor of history and ICS and a member of the ICS Program Committee, noted that it could be difficult for the deans to focus on running the program given their other responsibilities.
“In a university of limited resources (i.e., in any university), it’s critical that there are people who speak up on behalf of the department/program,” Olcott wrote in an email. “At present, the co-directors really have a foot in both camps—ICS and administration—and inevitably will have competing interests.”
Hasso explained in a recent conversation that she chose not to continue as director because she felt ICS was not sustainable. Despite the program’s high level of undergraduate interest—it has averaged approximately 155 majors and 55 graduates in recent years—Hasso said ICS has not received a proportional level of support from administrators.
In Spring 2013, Hasso formally requested an external review of the program with the hope of showing administrators that ICS needed more core faculty support. In meetings with administrators, she was told the review would happen within the next year—but it never did. The lack of commitment to her request was one reason she chose to move on, Hasso explained.
Another point of contention was the ability to hire tenure-track faculty to maintain the desirable faculty core that Hasso wanted for the program. The 2013 Board of Trustees resolution establishing ICS as a formal program stated that ICS could only hire non-tenure-track faculty, which Hasso feels has kept the program from reaching its full potential.
Currently the only faculty and staff with ICS as their main focus are Mathers, Program Coordinator Lisa Poteet, Jessica Namakkal, assistant professor of the practice of ICS and women's studies, and Instructor Heather Settle. The major requires 14 courses—four of which must be foreign language courses that correspond to a region for concentrated study—so several ICS courses are taught by faculty in different departments.
“ICS core courses require an interdisciplinary approach to global studies, informed by a research agenda,” Hasso said. “Even qualified faculty are essentially retrained through the core ICS courses, because they’re often initially trained in one disciplinary approach to global studies. Just when a qualified and committed faculty member has perfected teaching in global studies at Duke, they often leave because of lack of institutional support.”
The decision to allow ICS to hire only non-tenure-track faculty was made based on the procedures outlined in chapter two of the Faculty Handbook after review by the Arts and Sciences Council and the Academic Programs Committee, explained Scott Huettel, Jerry and Patricia Hubbard Professor of psychology and neuroscience and former chair of the APC, in an email. In relation to tenure-track appointments, the Faculty Handbook states:
Tenure is made only with Board of Trustees approval and by units offering credit toward a degree. Units authorized to make such appointments include schools (Fuqua School of Business, School of Law, Divinity School, Sanford School of Public Policy, School of Nursing), departments (Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Pratt School of Engineering, School of Medicine), divisions (Nicholas School of the Environment), and other units of an interdisciplinary nature so authorized by the Board of Trustees (sections, institutes and, in rare cases, centers or programs).
But although ICS is an interdisciplinary program and not a department, Hasso and Kirk pointed out that similar entities are allowed to directly hire tenure-track faculty.
After waiting almost 40 years to obtain program status, gaining the ability to directly appoint tenure-track positions would be an important next step for ICS.
“A key part of sustainability is to be able to hire or appoint partial or full lines in tenure-track positions because otherwise you are dependent on contingent faculty labor or faculty with primary responsibilities in another department,” Hasso said. "Duke undergraduate students, who have voted with their feet in their commitment to ICS for over 40 years, deserve better from Duke University.”
Olcott noted that despite her passion for ICS, she must prioritize her commitment to the history department.
“I’m deeply committed to the ICS students I advise, but my first obligation inevitably is to my principal department,” she wrote. “ICS students deserve to have more faculty whose primary commitment is to them.”
In contrast to the concerns of Hasso, Kirk and Olcott, Ross wrote in an email that she is confident that the University will make the necessary hires to replace her because Duke “is committed to staffing ICS appropriately for its teaching needs.”
But the questions facing ICS will remain until the program is better able to build up the faculty core Hasso said it needs, a task that is even more difficult without a full-time director.
“ICS really exemplifies everything that we consider the hallmarks of a Duke education —it’s interdisciplinary, it’s globally oriented, it’s engaged,” Olcott wrote. “You would think ICS would be Duke’s academic poster child, but instead it always seems to get short shrift.”
Editor’s Note: The Chronicle communicated with Hasso both in person and via email. This story was updated at 11:10 a.m. Friday to reflect that Poteet is a staff member as program coordinator, not faculty, and Namakkal is also an assistant professor of the practice in women's studies. The Chronicle regrets the errors.
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