Debate Question: In the present atmosphere in Ursinus, would it be ethical for the administration to make full disclosure - namely to make all their considerations and reasons for firing Dr. Pesta (including his personal file) public?
Source: Inquirer
Ursinus firing ignites outrage from students -
An English professor's early evaluation was good. He was a hit in classes.
Yet after some peers weighed in, he was out.
By Ralph Vigoda
Inquirer Staff Writer
Duke Pesta, a 34-year-old Shakespearean scholar and professor at Ursinus College, has been praised as "quite simply outstanding" by his department chair, has received high marks from students, and, since arriving in August 2000, has won a reputation for energy and enthusiasm in the classroom.
None of it has kept him from getting fired.
In December, he says, he was called into the office of President John Strassburger and told that his contract would not be renewed. The only reason he was given, he says, is "lack of collegiality."
In other words, he couldn't get along with other professors in the English department, four of whom last fall wrote a 12-page evaluation of Pesta's first year at the college, taking him to task for, among other things, not posting office hours.
Pesta's lawyer thinks it's a case of professional jealousy.
The school would not comment on the matter, a spokesman said yesterday. However, in e-mails sent by Strassburger to students wanting him to reconsider, he indicates the matter is a personnel issue that must remain confidential.
There are perhaps thousands of men and women in Pesta's position on college campuses across the country, cut loose before they can gain tenure.
This case, though, has provoked a groundswell of student anger and support for Pesta. A petition protesting his firing - and the dismissal of music professor Norman David - has more than 400 signatures on it, about a third of the 1,200-member student body. Many have complained to Strassburger and Dean Judith Levy by letter and e-mail.
"This is a pretty apathetic campus, and it amazes me this man has had such a positive influence on so many people that they want to go out and do something about it," said senior Genevieve Romeo, who helped organize the petition drive.
When David Ferleger, the lawyer hired by Pesta, was denied access to the school grounds to interview students, he set up a session at the nearby Collegeville Inn on Wednesday; about 100 students spoke with him, taking advantage of an impromptu shuttle service they organized.
Eight faculty members also met with Ferleger in support of Pesta. And yesterday, flyers were being distributed, supplemented with campuswide e-mails, urging attendance at a demonstration on campus at 5 p.m. today.
Ferleger said this week that the initial strategy is to save Pesta's job. If that fails, he promised a lawsuit on the ground that Pesta's firing violated provisions of the college faculty handbook.
"At first glance, it looks like a mystery to me," Ferleger said. "Even after reviewing all the papers and talking to the college's lawyer, it's still a mystery. My best guess is that the decision to end his teaching at Ursinus was made before the November review because the reviewers were threatened by his popularity."
Pesta acknowledges he and his colleagues "have ideological differences that cover the gamut of interpersonal and professional things, simple disagreements that you would think would make the intellectual life on a campus thrive." He also feels that "students became more and more enamored of my classes and this engendered resentment." Still, he said, he felt blindsided by both the negative evaluation and by his dismissal.
In August, department head Joyce Lionarons wrote a glowing review of Pesta. His teaching, she said, "is quite simply outstanding. His student evaluations... show that Duke's classes are perceived by his students as exciting, challenging... fairly taught and fairly rated. His enthusiasm and preparation are described as 'unmatched.' "
But Lionarons, who declined to discuss the case yesterday, was in London during the fall semester when the four faculty members reviewed Pesta.
That evaluation offered a mixed bag. While acknowledging that "Dr. Pesta delivers brilliant lectures and enjoyed great popularity with students... his classes repeatedly fail to meet carefully thought-out departmental and college requirements and guidelines."
The committee also questioned his willingness to be part of the department, lamenting the fact that a "collegial interchange of ideas has never materialized. We rarely see him in the department, and it is difficult to approach him in his office because he neither leaves his door open nor posts his office hours."
Pesta wrote a strongly worded response to the evaluation, including his complaint that it contained "misperceptions, half-truths, innuendo and rhetorical gibes."
In his meeting with Strassburger, Pesta said, the president called his response "vicious."
"I said, 'This is the most important evaluation of my career here, they fill it with trivia and innuendo, and you say my passionate response was vicious?' I tried to talk about things, but he wasn't interested."
Strassburger told him, according to Pesta, that there was a chance of reinstatement if he kept a low profile. For that reason, Pesta says, he asked students who learned of his impending departure to remain silent. He, too, kept quiet until the fall schedule was being prepared and his name wasn't on it.
Not long afterward, students started rallying.
"I felt like he was the best teacher I've ever had, through middle school, high school and my first year of college," said freshman Samit Patel, 18, of Voorhees, N.J., who has taken two courses with Pesta.
Romeo, 21, an English major from Yonkers, N.Y., who has taken seven of Pesta's courses in the last two years, said the outpouring has been "student-initiated."
"The administration thinks we've been brainwashed by a charismatic teacher and doing what he told us to do," added Genevieve Pope. "That's not true."
Despite the poisoned waters, Pesta said he would like to remain at Ursinus.
"I want my job because I have nothing else," he said. "And I'm more than willing to put these trivial, petty little differences behind us."
Last modified: Wed Sep 13 14:57:24 EDT 2000