Senior staff must share the burden

When Clayton Koppes steps down as provost in June he will leave a nine-year legacy as one of the most influential administrators in Oberlin’s recent history. In spite of this, it is probably safe to say that a majority of Oberlin’s campus has very little concept of what exactly his job is.

This is neither the time nor the place to evaluate Koppes’ performance as an administrator except to say that his devotion to Oberlin as an institution during his year as provost and eight years as dean of the College is unquestionable. However, with the upcoming vacancies in the positions of College dean and provost and President Nancy Dye saying she is in “deliberation mode” about whether to rehire a Provost at all, the time has come to raise serious questions about the structure of Oberlin’s administration.

In spite of the fact that the College is going through what Dye predicted would be among “the hardest years financially in Oberlin’s history” and is currently operating under a hiring freeze, students returned to campus this fall to find that new administrative positions had been added in athletics, development, the Dean of Student’s office and the senior administration. These unfreezings were justified as a strategic necessity.

The creation of the provost position garnered the most attention. Left dormant since the 1970s, Dye intended the provost to be “the person who is in charge of the campus when [she is not] here.”

Koppes was supposed to oversee the day-to-day running of the College and allow Dye to focus on fundraising and strategic planning. However, the deans of both the College and Conservatory continued reporting to Dye rather than Koppes, who himself took an active role in the drafting of the strategic plan, so it is still a bit unclear what exactly his job is.

At the same time the administration was expanding, the College was making cuts throughout the rest of campus. Both Oberlin unions saw reductions in benefits during the last round of contract negotiations, OSCA saw their rent increased and the Danenberg Oberlin-in-London program was suspended.

Over Winter Term it was announced that further cost-saving strategies would include reducing financial aid, reducing financial compensation, charging students fees for study-abroad and reducing the size of the College and Conservatory faculty.

These changes may be necessary, but it is understandable that they are greeted with a degree of skepticism by faculty and students when they come from an administration as large and well-paid as Oberlin’s.

Dye has said that her job will be made significantly more difficult without a provost. While this is a legitimate concern for the College, it is a sacrifice that should be made. Life has also been made more difficult this year for the custodians and secretaries, whose benefits have been reduced, and the students who planned on spending a semester in London.

Koppes said in December that “when you have a $2.5 million budget deficit, some pretty heroic actions are required.”

The administration ought to take this statement to heart. Heroism in leadership does not just mean telling employees that they must make difficult sacrifices. Sometimes it requires leaders to make difficult sacrifices themselves.

With this in mind, the editors of this newspaper strongly encourage President Dye to discontinue the vague and seemingly ineffective provost position and to refrain from creating more administrative positions in the immediate future.

The Oberlin community should be prepared to accept a certain amount of belt-tightening until the College’s economic situation improves, but only if this belt tightening does not just apply to the service building and Rice but Cox as well.
 
 

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