A debate over eliminating the Fredonia philosophy department

TO:                  Virginia Horvath, President, Terry Brown, Provost, Andy Karafa, Dean, Carmen

                        Rivera, Associate Dean, Tracy Horth, Secretary

FROM:            Stephen Kershnar, Chair, Ray Belliotti, Neil Feit, and Dale Tuggy

RE:                 Elimination of the Philosophy Department

DATE:            April 4, 2017

Part One: Opposition to Elimination

            In his recent Right Serving Right Sizing memorandum, Dean Karafa wrote as follows about the Department of Philosophy.

[A] reorganization of CLAS is worth exploring. For example, as noted above, Philosophy’s enrollment has steadily declined and is now at 10 primary majors. (There are 9 secondary majors.) The work of the faculty has done to further streamline an already structurally simple program and revise its schedule to meet student demand is commendable. Unfortunately, it is likely not enough to stem the decline. (Declining enrollment is common across the country.) An examination of merging this department with another within CLAS is worth consideration.            

The philosophy department strongly opposes its elimination, which would be the result of the sort of merger Dean Karafa describes. Below are our reasons against elimination.

            It is worth noting that some members of the department were told about the plan to dissolve it (and move the faculty into the English Department) well before Right Serving Right Sizing. If this information was accurate, then it seems that this plan is not a response to the Right Serving Right Sizing study. We do not know if this was done for financial reasons, to get back at faculty that have opposed administration initiatives, or another reason.[1] If there was a discussion of this merger, we do not know why the philosophy faculty were not included in the discussion.   

Part Two: Reasons against Elimination

Reason #1: Minimal Savings and Substantial Costs

The savings generated by eliminating the philosophy department are small. The savings amount to the cost of three additional classes annually (assuming a philosophy professor does not serve as an associate chair), yearly chair stipend, and in the long term, an addition to the previous chair’s base. In the short term, this is roughly $13,000 per year (= [($3,000/class) x 3 classes] + $4,000 stipend). These savings are not great. When compared to the negative statewide attention that the campus will receive for eliminating the department, the negative national attention and protests on philosophical/academic blogs and related venues, and the risk of damaging a cheap and efficient academic department, even these expected costs of elimination far exceed the benefits.

On Sunday, April 2, we sent an informational email to philosophy department chairpersons in the SUNY system regarding Dean Karafa’s suggestion. We are waiting for more responses, but as we finalize this memo just two days later, we have already received support – including a willingness to write public letters protesting our elimination – from six of our SUNY comprehensive peer departments. Other departments have the issue on upcoming agendas.

Note that every one of Fredonia’s SUNY competitors has an independent philosophy department. See the comprehensive colleges (Brockport, Buffalo State, Cortland, Geneseo, New Paltz, Oneonta, Oswego, Plattsburgh, Potsdam, Purchase) and the university centers (Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Stony Brook). If President Horvath and Provost Brown decide to eliminate the department, this will expose Fredonia as conspicuously imprudent, in a way that is inconsistent with our stated vision as a “premier public university.” A public university without a philosophy department is a lower-tier institution that does not take the liberal arts seriously.

Moreover, the department is cheap and efficient. The Data Notebook data indicate that the department’s direct instructional cost per SCH is $224, which is below the institution average of $244. We suspect that since Ray Belliotti was on a half-year sabbatical in Fall 2014 (with full pay while contingent faculty staffed courses) the numbers for the department are even better in a typical year. The department’s student-faculty ratio (FTE students taught/FTE faculty) of 19.3 also compares favorably with the institutional average, 14.1.

The philosophy department’s efficiency is noticeably better than the campus and, often, better than the national average. Please see Appendix #1. This is particularly impressive given that our small faculty needs to offer a substantial number of upper level courses for majors and minors. The same is true with enrollment. The philosophy department performs better than the institution and, importantly, already meets the enrollment-ratio goal. Please see Appendix #2. Dean Karafa’s focus on majors (especially primary majors), while not unimportant, is pernicious in the absence of attention to these other, relevant, data.

One way to see how cheap the department is by noting that the university spends considerably more money per administrator, business professor, and higher level police officer than per philosophy professor.[2] Please see Appendix #3.

Another cost has to do with the philosophy department’s unique focus and culture. Our department focuses on providing a rigorous, deep, and balanced education in philosophy. It also has a strong history of research excellence. (Consider the noteworthy research done by such extraordinary professors as Ray Belliotti, Randy Dipert, and Tibor Machan.) The department also has a friendly, positive culture. The concern is that this unique focus and culture will be lost if the department is eliminated by being merged into another department. This is especially true if the philosophy subsumed into a larger department. The concern is still greater if the department is plagued with internal strife (see, for example, English).

Reason #2: Program Performance

The department has fewer majors than normal, but previously it had an impressive number of majors per tenure-track faculty. Here is the recent history. The number of majors is down considerably, but there is little reason to believe that it will remain down. To roughly the extent that the administration is optimistic about reversing the decline in overall enrollment, it should be optimistic about the number of philosophy majors.

Table 1. Majors

Year	Number Majors
2008	33
2009	43
2010	38
2011	42
2012	36
2013	32
2014	22
2015	17
2016	19
Average	33 majors per year

The lower recent numbers should take into account (a) the 24% decrease in the number of students at the university, (b) the decrease in humanities and other departments more generally, and (c) the elimination by the administration of the large section of our introductory class that was our best recruiting tool.[3]

Our placement is excellent. A significant number of graduates over the past four years are now attending (or have recently finished) top notch law schools and philosophy programs. Two of these students are at Ph.D. programs at Indiana and Syracuse (ranked in the top 25 and 40 in the nation, respectively) on free rides. Others are at Minnesota law, Arizona Law, Wake Forest Law (on free rides), and others are at Brooklyn and Albany Law, and four others are at philosophy or other MA programs. In the past decade or so, our students have attended the following excellent law schools and MBA programs (Penn, Duke, William & Mary, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, Rutgers, Ohio State, Wake Forest, Case Western, Brooklyn, Syracuse, and SUNY-Buffalo) and strong graduate programs (Duke, Indiana, Syracuse, University of Missouri, Northern Illinois University, Ohio University, University of Victoria, and University of Miami).    

Reason #3: National Climate

            The dean made the following argument with regard to a few interdisciplinary majors.

Other majors and minors have less-than-obvious homes. The majors Women’s and Gender Studies and American Studies and minor Ethnic Studies are good examples of this. … Given the national climate; our students need the content. Unfortunately, few are getting it, at least not from the curriculum. Many are impacted by the outreach (e.g., national speakers) made possible by the area’s budget.

While we are not entirely clear what “national climate” refers to, it seems that whatever argument can be made for students needing these interdisciplinary majors applies to philosophy as well. What students need now is the sort of critical thinking about regional, national, and global affairs that is the primary focus of a philosophy course or program. Eliminating the philosophy department will diminish its ability to provide greatly needed content and skills to students.

Part Three: Conclusion

            In summary, the philosophy department does not think that its elimination is good for students or the university. It endangers the unique focus and culture, the savings are minimal, and the department has over the last decade done a good job of generating majors and graduates, as well as contributing significantly to general education in the humanities and western civilization.

Appendix #1: Efficiency

Table 2. Efficiency

Area	Department (percentage compared to institution)	Institution	National Average	Comment
% Undergraduate SCH taught be tenure-track faculty	55% (106%)	52%	54%	This is impressive given that the tenure-track faculty have to teach the higher-level classes that typically have fewer students than the introductory classes.
SCH per faculty FTE (all categories)	289 (140%)	207	249	This speaks for itself.
Direct instructional expenditure per FTE Student	$6,731 (6% better)	$7,167	$5,075	This is true even though the department has only four tenure-track professors, all of whom are senior professors.
Direct instructional cost (Expenditure) per SCH	$224 (8% better)	$244	$169	See above.
Direct instructional cost (Expenditure) per FTE SCH (without FB)	$183 (7% better)	$197	N/A	See above.

Appendix #2: Enrollment

Table 3. Enrollment

Area	Department (Fall 2013-Spring 2016 Avg.) [Percentage compared to institution]	Institution	Goal	Comment
Enrollment Ratio	87.98% [3.5% better]	85.00%	85.00
Balanced Course Ratio	42.07% [31% better]	32%	60%	This is a very favorable comparison.
Enrollment Cap	34 (Fall 2011-Spring 2016) [31% better]	26	N/A	See above.
Average Enrollment	29.5 (Fall 2011-Spring 2016) [40% better]	21	N/A	See above

           

Appendix #3: Salaries

Table 4. Sample Salaries*

Arnavut, Ziya	Prof, CS	$107,222
Belliotti, Raymond	DTP, Philosophy	$137,773
Boisjoly, Russell	Dean, Business	$161, 362
Burns, Ann	Police Chief	$123,078
Cornell, Charles	Incubator	$78, 593
Daley, Michael	HR Director	$121,529
Feit, Neil	DTP, Philosophy	$81,837
Givner, Christine	Dean, Education	$152,162
Hall, Linda	Prof., Business	$141,362
Horowitz, Judith	Assoc. Provost	$124,638
Horvath, Virginia	President	$215, 739
Huang, Lei	Asst. Prof, Business	$108,959
Hunter, Lisa	Assoc. Provost	$121,495
Kearns, Kevin	Academic Engagement	$175,115
Kershnar, Stephen	DTP, Philosophy	$83,500
Martin, Scott	Police, Fredonia	$115,502
McNamara, Susan	Asst. Prof, Business	$116,375
Miller, Benjamin	Police, Fredonia	$99,371
Mohammed, Shazad	Assoc. Prof, Business	$105,543
Prechtl, Greg	Athletic Dir., Fredonia	$113,849
Robinson, Richard	Prof., Fredonia	$145,930
Studley, Brian	Police, Fredonia	$110,069
Tuggy, Dale	Prof., Philosophy	$77, 969
Walters, Lisa	Assoc. Prof, Business	$100,872
Wheeler, Clifton	Police, Fredonia	$138,017
Yi, Taihyeup	Assoc. Prof, Business	$115,866

*This appears to include extra pay (for example, summer classes, overtime, and stipends).

Appendix #4: Graduation

Table 5. Graduates

Period	Graduates per year	Number of graduates
2013-2016	11 students/year	32 students (projected 43 over 4 years)
2009-2013	10 students/year	50 students
1999-2003	4.6 students/year	23 students
1989-1993	3.2 students/year	16 students
1979-1983	2.2 students/year	11students

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[1] A previous dean told the philosophy department that the administration was aware of their pattern of questioning the administration and that it made them very unhappy with the department. The questioning was well within the appropriate range of academic discussion and governance. Here is what the unhappiness likely rested on.

·         Administrative Review. Dale Tuggy and Steve Kershnar tried to allow the university senate access to reviews of the administrative divisions. It had long been a right of senators, but was eliminated by senate chair and English Department chair Bruce Simon.

·         General Education Program. Ray Belliotti, Neil Feit, and Kershnar led the opposition to the new general education program. The senate voted down the first two versions.

·         Enhanced Presidential Ceremonies. Belliotti was a leading commentator on the greatly enhanced ceremonies welcoming the appointment of the new president: Virginia Horvath. The ceremonies were far more than what had been done for previous presidents.

·         Faculty Voting. Feit and Kershnar were part of the effort to retain faculty voting on new hires and chairs (it has been in effect eliminated in the case of hires and there was an attempt to eliminate it in the case of chair selection). The administration does appear to have stealthily eliminated the faculty right to vote on new hires, although this does not appear to be consistent throughout the college. At least two deans opposed faculty voting on the chair and tried to implement a right of the administration to vet chair candidates before the faculty were allowed to vote on them.

·         Free Speech. Kershnar was denied a promotion by President Hefner and Vice President Horvath. There was then attempt to negotiate a prior-restraint requirement on his public writings. The negotiation broke down. Eventually, this was reversed but only after the college received a lot of bad publicity.

·         Associate Provost. Neil Feit was among a group of senators to move to recommend against hiring two Associate Provosts in Academic Affairs, and later (after two were hired) he pressed Associate Provost Horowitz on the decision to hire a grants development specialist to fill the line left vacant by Maggie Bryan-Peterson’s departure.

·         Senior Lectureship. The department’s request for a full-time position for its long-term contingent faculty (Chris Pacyga) has consistently been denied, despite the fact that similar requests were granted for many other departments.

·         UUP Matter. In a case involving President Hefner’s denying an award to a faculty member who was chosen by relevant committee, Belliotti and Kershnar pointed out that leading administrators were saying contradictory things to Hefner and the union. Hefner appeared to be none too pleased. The next year the faculty member received the award.

[2] In contrast to the attempt to save $13,000, consider over the last few years, the administration has found the money to fund a new division (including a new vice president who earned $175,000 last year) and an additional associate provost. It also hired an administrative team that is almost entirely external to the university. The last point can be seen in that none of the following came from the faculty: music director, four deans, two associate provosts, provost, and president. This adds cost to the university because the people are not temporarily removed from the faculty salary rolls. Instead, they are added onto the rolls on top of the faculty.

[3] It is worth noting that we received inconsistent explanations of why the class was eliminated. On one version, given from Dean Roger Byrne allegedly on behalf of President Horvath, the class was simply too large. On a second version, explicitly given by Provost Brown, the class was not too large, but the course release for teaching it was intolerable. Regardless of which was the administrative position, a significant recruiting opportunity has been eliminated.

People Choosing Their Race: An Analogy to People Choosing Their Gender

Stephen Kershnar

Can You Choose Your Race?

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

May 8, 2017

            Recently, in the feminist journal Hypatia, philosopher Rebecca Tuvel argued that what allows people to change their gender (transgenderism) also allows them to change their race (transracialism). More specifically, she argued, the same reason that society has to recognize that people can change their gender should make it recognize that they can change their race.

   

            Tuvel’s article produced a firestorm. Hundreds of academics signed an open letter of protest. This list included academics from top shelf schools such as MIT, Oxford, and Princeton. Hypatia’s editorial board stated that the article should not have been published and apologized for the harm it caused. University of Tennessee philosopher Nora Berenstain went a step further claiming that the article was discursive violence toward trans people.

The board’s statement and apology are a troubling break from philosophical tradition. Traditionally, philosophers respond to arguments they disagree with by refuting them, not by denouncing the author and publisher and then demanding an apology. Attacking philosophers, rather than engaging their ideas, is an ominous sign for philosophy.

            Tuvel begins her article by noting that Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner transitioned from being a man to a woman and then graced the cover of Vanity Fair. Tuvel compares Jenner to Rachel Dolezal. Until recently, Dolezal was the head of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington. In 2015, Dolezal resigned after she was outed for presenting herself as black when her parents are white. One can see why Dolezal might have seen herself as being black. She had four adopted black siblings, was married to a black man with whom she had a child, had a black father figure whom she called “dad,” and attended Howard University, a traditionally black university.

            Tuvel asserts that in order to successfully change one’s gender (for example, from male to female), a person must identify with a sex other than the one she was born into and her society must accept that she is a member of the group with which she identifies. Oftentimes trans people do this by changing their appearance, sometimes via surgical transformation. Tuvel then argues as follows. People can change their gender. Gender and race are similar. Hence, people can change their race. Just as Jenner can go from male to female, Dolezal can go from white to black.

            Tuvel faced the objection that gender and race are dissimilar. The idea is that gender involves changeable features (consider, for example, secondary sex characteristics, hormones, or identification). In contrast, the objection goes, race involves an unchangeable feature, specifically, one’s genetic ancestry. Citing Charles Mills, Tuvel responded that race is changeable because it is a function of factors such as culture, experience, identification, how one thinks about her ancestors, and how others think about her ancestors. Because some or all of the factors are changeable, she concludes, race is changeable.  

            A second objection Tuvel faced is that even if gender and race are similar in that they are constructed and changeable, society should not recognize that people can change races because it is insulting and harmful to allow white people to become black. She notes that Dolezal’s adopted black brother claimed that her transition was like a white person appearing in blackface. Tuvel responded that changing from white to black need not be insulting. It might be affirming in that the transition in effect suggests that it is good to be black.

            The problem with the argument is that sex (biological categorization) is not socially constructed and gender (the way in which society views men and women) is not entirely socially constructed. Contrary to Tuvel and her fellow travelers, gender tracks sex. Sex depends on some combination of genetics and secondary sex characteristics and the concept of gender depends on the concept of sex. Just as we think that what makes a rhinoceros male or female does not depend on how a rhinoceros thinks of herself or how other rhinoceroses think of her, the same is true for human beings.

The fact that there are intermediate cases of sex and gender (consider hermaphrodites) does not mean that there are not paradigmatic cases of men and women (or male and female) and that these cases are independent of what society thinks or values. By analogy, the fact that there are cats that are part lion and part tiger (ligers and tigons) does not mean that there are no lions or tiers or that what makes something a lion or tiger depends on how others think of them. Genetic makeup and sex characteristics (breasts, vagina, etc.) can diverge because of, for example, hormone insensitivity. At most, this tells us that the concept has unclear boundaries or, perhaps, that secondary characteristics take priority over genetics.

            Race is also not socially constructed. There are evolutionary lines that have produced different biological groups (whether groups of killer whales or humans). Again, neither the degree of similarity in most psychological and physical features nor the existence of intermediate (mixed race) people, prevents these ancestral lineage being what makes someone white, Asian, black, and so on. For example, Pygmies are a distinct evolutionary line.

            Basic kindness tells us that people who want to be treated as if they changed their sex or gender and make a serious effort in that direction should be treated as if they had successfully done so. The same argument applies to those who want to change their race and make a serious effort in that direction. The suicide rate among trans people is truly alarming and we should do what we can to make their lives less traumatic.

            The real problem for this argument isn’t that it caused harm. It is the implausibility of the claim that people can change their sex, gender, and race. A problem for the feminist brigade is that if people could change their race, then the many and sizable affirmative-action and diversity-related benefits could be more easily seen. This is not something that those pushing hard to discriminate against whites, Asians, and sometimes men can afford to let happen.

Taxes Should Not Be Progressive

Stephen Kershnar

The Tax Code Should Not be Progressive

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

May 1, 2018

            Donald Trump has unveiled a new tax plan. It cuts the number of personal income brackets from seven to three: 10%, 25%, and 35%. The plan lowers the top rate from 40% to 35%. It also reduces business taxes from 35% (the highest in the Western world) to 15% and reduces the rate for small businesses that constitute their owners’ personal income from 40% to 15%. In addition, it eliminates the 40% death tax (estate tax) that rich people pay.  

The left immediately criticized the plan because it unduly benefits the rich. The Tax Policy Center estimates that the plan would increase the after-tax income of the top 1% far more than it would the middle class and poor. This criticism assumes that the tax code should be progressive, that is, it should tax those who make more money at a higher rate than those who make less. But why think this?

One reason to be skeptical of progressivity is that that businesses normally charge a flat fee. For example, Burger King charges the same price for a Big Mac to the rich and poor. The same is true for the sellers of cable TV, sneakers, massages, and Toyotas. No one thinks this is wrong or unfair. Whatever justifies a flat fee for these goods and services likely justifies a flat fee for government goods and services.

If anything, the poor should pay more because they use more services. The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector and Jason Richwine report that in 2010, the average household headed by a person without a high school degree received $35,000 of taxpayer money (benefits received minus taxes paid). In contrast, the average household headed by a college graduate paid out $29,000 in taxes (again, benefits received minus taxes paid). An analogy would be if a poor family of nine insisted that they pay the same percentage of their income to Burger King as a rich family of three despite the fact that the former ate five times as many burgers. It is unclear why the business world should have flat fees, but the government should not.

Taxes should not be progressive because the poor are more deserving. Depending on the theory, deserved income is a matter of the degree to which someone works harder or longer, contributes to others’ well-being, or sacrifices to produce things. The rich work noticeably longer hours. The Free Exchange column in The Economist reports that by 2005, college-educated people worked on average two hours more per day than those without a high-school diploma. More than one out of four of the former worked more than 50 hours a week, a much higher percentage than high-school dropouts. Princeton’s Mark Aguiar and The University of Chicago’s Erik Hurst found that college-educated people have noticeably less leisure time than their non-college-educated counterparts. I do not know, though, if the rich work harder or face more pressure at work.

The rich also contribute more to others. Standard economic theory holds that in the free market those who make more money contribute more to others’ lives than those who make less. This is why customers pay more to buy their things and why firms pay more for their labor. A chief financial officer can improve or worsen a large corporation’s efficiency by tens of millions of dollars. A low level clerk doesn’t have such an impact.

Sacrifice is hard to measure but it likely tracks things like the degree to which someone put off having an income to go to school, waited until she was married to have children, had less leisure time, etc. The rich made more of these sacrifices than did the middle class who in turn made more than did the poor.

Here is another way to look at who deserves what. The Brooking Institution’s Ron Haskins points out that for people who do three things (finish high school, get a full-time job, and wait until age 21 to get married and have children), 75% will be middle class and only 2% will be poor. For most people, this is not too much to ask.

The progressive tax rate is sometimes defended because the poor need taxpayer money more than the rich. That’s true. But if the poor are going to be given taxpayer money that they neither earned nor deserve, it is better that it be given out as welfare or, perhaps, subsidized housing, food, medicine, etc. rather than disguised as a tax return. Disguising welfare as a tax return makes it less clear the degree to which some people are carrying others. This is not good as it makes it harder for voters to assess whether taxpayers are doing too much or too little. By analogy, if a poor single mother were allowed to use your credit card, it would be better for both you and her if it was clear how much she was spending rather than commingling your and her spending.   

The U.S. tax code is very progressive. Here is one way to see this. Economist Mark Perry using a Congressional Budget Office study of 2013 taxes found that the bottom 60% of U.S. households received more in federal transfer payments than they paid in federal taxes. The top 20% paid for this transfer plus almost all other costs of running the government. They did so because they pay a much higher percentage of their money in taxes than every other group, far more than even the upper middle class (households with 60-80% incomes).

There is an issue as to whether the progressive income tax even benefits the poor. There is good reason to believe that flatter and lower taxes (especially lower business taxes) would create economic growth that would benefit the poor and middle class more than would higher taxes. Still, even if this were not true, there is nothing right, fair, or just about a progressive tax.