Correction: An earlier version of this article identified Professor Danielle Egan as having begun her employment at Connecticut College in Spring 2018. This is inaccurate; Egan began her appointment as GWS department chair over the summer and executed administrative tasks while on family leave during Fall 2017. She began her teaching load in Spring 2018.
The Connecticut College Gender and Women’s Studies department is in a time of transition. Last year, a long, national search yielded the hiring of a department chair, Professor Danielle Egan, who began her appointment as department chair over the summer of 2017 and began teaching at the College this spring. At a recent intra-departmental GWS meeting, consisting of Egan and fellow tenure-track professor in the department Ariella Rotramel, and the majoring and minoring students, the future of the GWS department was discussed. Part of the meeting’s purpose was to announce the changing of the department name (from Gender and Women’s Studies to Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality Studies). Visiting Professor Andrea Baldwin, who started at Conn in the 2015-16 academic year, was not invited to this meeting. After several students, including Joseph Castro ’19 and Zaiden Sowle ’21, inquired as to why Baldwin was not at the meeting, Egan disclosed to them that Baldwin had decided not to return for the 2018-2019 academic year.
Castro and Sowle reached out to Baldwin after the meeting and found out that she had been offered an extended visiting contract for the next year and an offer to be included in the national search for a new tenure-track position being created in GWS. The search to fill the tenure-track position was to occur in academic year 2018-19, and though Baldwin would be able to extend her visiting contract for the duration of the search, there was no guarantee that she would be hired into the tenure track. The students, along with Samantha Weisenthal ’18, requested a meeting with Egan, Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion John McKnight, and Dean of the Faculty Abby Van Slyck, for the students to voice their concerns regarding Baldwin’s employment status at the College. In addition to the student organizers, more than 40 students and several professors attended the meeting that took place on Thursday, Feb. 8.
Egan began the meeting by providing context on the situation with Baldwin and the rationale behind the decision to change the name of the department. Professor of Sociology Cherise Harris then read a statement on behalf of Baldwin, who was not initially invited to the meeting and who, upon finding out about it the day of, decided not to attend. Darryl Brown ’18 quickly pointed out that “the classes that Baldwin offers would be optimal [for fostering intersectionality],” and several students also voiced their concerns at having a department called Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality Studies with no professors of color on staff. Egan responded by saying that whomever they hire to replace Baldwin would fulfill the need for intersectionality within the department.
A major source of student concern was a perceived inconsistency in hiring procedures within GWS, as students pointed out that while Baldwin would be expected to withstand a national search, Rotramel had been hired from a visiting to a tenure-track position without the same formalities. According to Van Slyck, the GWS department was nearing state of crisis in AY 2014-15, as one professor was denied tenure (the academic equivalent of a dismissal) and the other retired. At the time, the two departing professors occupied the only full-time, tenure-track positions in the GWS department. Their departure allowed the department to offer Rotramel an “opportunity hire,” which means she was hired without going through a national search first.
Van Slyck explained that the situation in 2014-15 differed from the GWS department’s current status, as GWS currently has two full-time professors. While Egan, Van Slyck, and McKnight were hesitant to refer to any of Baldwin’s work outside of the GWS department, Castro pointed out that three of the main faculty members involved in running the Africana Studies program will go on sabbatical next fall; if Baldwin were to depart as well, it would be difficult for members of the classes of 2019 and 2020 to finish their Africana Studies majors and minors.
The students also tried to discuss Baldwin’s situation in relation to a larger institutional problem. Nifemi Olugbemiga ’20, said, “it would be unwise for us to treat this issue [as if it were] about a sticky situation involving only one person…What I have seen is that a person, a black woman, was let down by this institution…as a black woman I do not feel protected [by Conn].” Dr. Marcelle Medford, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Sociology department, supported Olugbemiga’s assessment and the comments of other students, saying, “the students hit the nail on the head, being visiting or adjunct is a tenuous position to be in—it’s an exploitation of labor—I’m a woman of color; I don’t have a fraction of the students that Andrea has… How can we make [the College] better rather than being another one of those colleges that exploits women of color?” McKnight was quick to assert his dedication to the retention and support of women of color faculty at Conn, but pointed out that “there is no other profession in the world that is nearly as absurd as academia,” referring both to the intensity of the hiring process and the unique benefit of employment for life.
The meeting did not reach a clear resolution, but many of the students, deans, and faculty involved expressed hope that further communication will lead to a solution that can make both students and the department and administration happy. The students involved have no intention of giving up or stalling their advocacy for Baldwin, as she has been an extraordinary influence in many of her advisees’ lives. A flood of Facebook posts have materialized in the past week, each one working from the same template including the phrase, “I stand in solidarity with professors of color being exploited by academic institutions. Who are deemed less valuable than their white counterparts.” Students are hoping to draw attention to the larger issue of primarily white institutions (like Conn) not valuing work done by contingent, women of color faculty. Professor Harris summed up the bigger picture at Thursdays event. “It just feels sometimes that we’re moving at a glacial pace—that when we have an opportunity to make a change it doesn’t happen…maybe this is a time when nothing could be done, but when it’s combined with all the times that something could’ve been done…[it makes the impact feel worse].”
Editor’s note: Maia Hibbett contributed reporting.
