FACULTY STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY AND ACTION

December 5, 2019

Facing the challenge of a recent series of events that reverberate with deeper histories of racism, anti-
semitism, xenophobia, sexism, and heterosexism, Syracuse University is caught up in a moment of great
anguish. But this is also, we believe, a moment of unusual clarity and possibility. Our current moment
has clarified that this institution struggles with—and therefore suffers from—a woeful lack of attention
to, if not outright neglect of, the critical, conceptual, and ethical importance of the humanities, arts, and
social sciences. And our moment has opened up possibilities to address and redress these issues, to
educate all students to grapple critically and ethically with questions of human difference through a
sustained engagement in humanistic inquiry and artistic expression.

This moment—our moment—has been powerfully shaped by the collective voices of students of the
#NotAgainSU movement, of international students, and of Jewish and Muslim students, among others.
Many faculty join these student voices, expressing solidarity and support, adding their own accents and
perspectives, and ensuring that the fight to transform our university culture is carried across the
relatively brief lives of student generations. We believe that our obligation to teach our students to
think critically and constructively about the complexities of human difference can be best addressed
through an extensive liberal arts core curriculum attuned to issues of difference and diversity and
required university-wide for all undergraduates. Anything less, such as the single-course solution
represented by Sem 100 in whatever guise, will be inadequate as other than a transitional measure and
ultimately ineffective in shifting the campus climate of discrimination.

Support for such a liberal arts core curriculum requires nurturing, strengthening, and expanding the
faculty in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. It requires actively cultivating a diverse and inclusive
faculty across the university, since the bodies and identities of teachers are a crucial part of any
curriculum. It also requires rethinking initiatives and structures that may stand in the way of such
change. We are concerned that the cluster hires that are currently central to the university’s strategy for
faculty development steer resources away from the humanities, arts, and social sciences, as well as from
efforts to build faculty diversity. We are also concerned that the Responsibility-Centered Management
(RCM) funding model, which encourages the various schools to compete with one another for students,
impedes a university-wide commitment to a liberal arts core curriculum.

Finally, we believe that opening up lines of communication between the faculty and the Board of
Trustees is crucial to the success of the university in effecting needed change.

No group can claim to represent the voices of all faculty members. But there are some of us who feel an
urgent need to think, speak, and act collectively. In so doing, we issue an invitation to all of our Syracuse
University faculty colleagues-- across schools, divisions, departments, and disciplines—to join us in our
efforts.
Signatures:

1. Virginia Burrus (Religion)

2. Biko Gray (Religion)

3. Gareth Fisher (Religion)

4. Jim Watts (Religion)

5. Joanne Waghorne (Religion)

6. Ken Frieden (Religion)

7. Tazim Kassam (Religion)

8. Marcia Robinson (Religion)

9. Phil Arnold (Religion)

10. Gail Hamner (Religion)

11. Harvey Teres (English)

12. Kathleen Feyh (Communication & Rhetorical Studies)

13. Emily Stokes-Reese (Museum Studies)

14. Coran Klaver (English)

15. Mark Rupert (Political Science)

16. Glenn Peers (Art & Music Histories)

17. Harriet Brown (Newhouse)

18. Crystal Bartolovich (English)

19. Wayne Franits (Art & Music Histories)

20. Jan Dowell (Philosophy)

21. Dave Sobel (Philosophy)

22. Gail Bulman (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics)

23. Chris A. Eng (English)

24. Beth A. Ferri (Education)

25. Mike Goode (English)

26. Lois Agnew (Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition)

27. Ken Baynes (Philosophy & Political Science)

28. Emma Ticio (Languages, Literatures, loop and Linguistics)

29. Audrey Thompson (Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition)

30. Tony Scott (Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition)

31. Rania Habib (Languages, Literatures and Linguistics)

32. Kathy Everly (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics)

33. Regina Luttrell (Newhouse)

34. Tula Goenka (Newhouse)

35. Sean Branagan (Newhouse)

36. Margaret Himley (LGBT Studies)

37. Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson (Philosophy)

38. Douglas Quin (Newhouse)

39. Aileen Gallagher (Newhouse)

40. Brice Nordquist (Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition)

41. Roger Hallas (English)

42. Chris Feikes (Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition)

43. Jim Shahin (Newhouse)

44. Erika Haber (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics)

45. Myrna García-Calderón (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics)

46. Hua Jiang (Newhouse)

47. Barbara Jones (Newhouse)

48. Karina von Tippelskirch (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics)

49. Brooks Haxton (English)

50. Matt Huber (Geography)

52. Tej Bhatia (LLL/Linguistics)

53. Eileen E. Schell (Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition)

54. Sean M. Conrey (English)

55. Cecilia A. Green (Sociology)

56. Rusty Bartels (Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition)

57. Genevieve Garcia de Mueller (Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition)

58. Thomas M. Keck (Political Science)

59. Patrick W. Berry (Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition)

60. Danika Medak-Saltzman (Women’s and Gender Studies)

61. Matthew Spitzmueller (School of Social Work)

62. Ben Bradley (Philosophy)

63. Rachel Hall (Communication and Rhetorical Studies)

64. Gretchen Purser (Sociology)

65. Erin J. Rand (Communication and Rhetorical Studies)

66. Scott M. Stevens (Native American and Indigenous Studies/ English)

67. Mary Lee Hodgens (Light Work)

68. Dalia Rodriguez (Education)

69. Michael Rieppel (Philosophy)

70. Heath Hanlin (Transmedia/VPA)

71. Margaret Susan Thompson (History/PSC/Religion)

72. Anneka Herre (Transmedia in VPA/Light Work)

73. Amy Barone (Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition)

74. Denise A Heckman (School of Design)

75. Albrecht Diem (History)

76. Cjala Surratt (Light Work/Community Folk Art Center)

77. Stefano Selenu (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics)

78. Jaklin Kornfilt (LLL/Linguistics)

79. Anne C Bellows (Food Studies)

80. Christine Ashby (Education)

81. Cooper Battersby (Transmedia)

82. Jackie Orr (Sociology)

83. Linda Stone Fish (Marriage and Family Therapy)

84. Caroline O’Hara (Counseling and Human Services)

85. Ana Méndez-Oliver (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics)

86. Diane Grimes (Communication and Rhetorical Studies)

87. Carol Babiracki (Art & Music Histories, South Asia Center)
88. Thomas E. Winningham (Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition)

89. Julie Herman (Light Work)

90. Doug DuBois (Transmedia)

91. Matilde Mateo (Art and Music Histories)

92. Rachel Brown (Education)

93. Emily Dressing (Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition)

94. Samantha Kahn Herrick (History)

95. Diane Swords (Intergroup Dialogue)

96. Stefano Giannini (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics)

97. Dianna Miller (Industrial and Interaction Design)

98. Farhana Sultana (Geography)

99. Mike Davis (Newhouse)

100. Samuel Gorovitz (Philosophy)

101. Joanna Spitzner ( School of Art)

102. Nancy Keefe Rhodes (Transmedia/Film in VPA)

103. William Robert (Religion)

104. Amy Kallander (History)

105. Dawn Johnson (Education)

106. Matthew Mulvaney (HDFS)

107. Tod Rutherford (Geography)

108. Shannon Novak (Anthropology)

109. Tom Sherman (Transmedia)

110. Eunjung Kim (Women’s and Gender Studies, Cultural Foundations of Education)

111. Michael Gill (Cultural Foundations of Education)

112. Marion Dorfer (CVPA - School of Design)

113. Tom Perreault (Geography)

114. Susan D’Amato (School of Art)

115. Chris Wildrick (Art)

116. Marilyn Koch (School of Art)

117. Alicia Ríos (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics)

118. Emily Vey Duke (Transmedia)

119. Jude Lewis (School of Art)

120. Barbara Applebaum (School of Education)

121. Dusty Herbig (School of Art)

122. Himika Bhattacharya (Women's & Gender Studies)

123. Michael Schoonmaker (Newhouse)

124. Vivian May (Women’s and Gender Studies)

125. Lyndsay Gratch (Communication and Rhetorical Studies)

126. Chandra Talpade Mohanty (Women’s and Gender Studies)

127. Kellen Backer (Faculty Fellow in the Humanities)

128. Melissa Chessher (Newhouse)

129. Karen Oakes (Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition)

130. Gwendolyn D. Pough (Women’s and Gender Studies)

131. Stephanie Shirilan (English)

132. George Langford (Biology)

133. Sarah McCoubrey (School of Art)

134. Zachary Braiterman (Religion, Director of Jewish Studies)

135. Yingyi Ma (Sociology, Director of Asian/Asian American Studies)

136. Bruce Smith (English)

137. Dorri Beam (English, Chair of the Humanities Council)

138. Mary Karr (English, Peck Professor of Literature)

139. Susan Edmunds (English)

140. Samuel D. Gruber (PT Faculty, Arts & Sciences)

141. Pat Moody (English)

142. Steven Cohan (English)

143. Christopher Kennedy (English)

144. Will Scheibel (English)

145. David Perez II (Education)

146. Rebecca Moore Howard (Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition)

147. Christal Johnson (Newhouse)

148. Lori Brown (Architecture)