Administration blew it

To the Editor:

In regards to the timing of Dean Cole-Newkirk's "resignation:" If it is true that the Dean was forced to resign Tuesday, then the timing of the event is a transparent attempt to undermine student protest. There is nothing mysterious in the fact that the student body was not notified until Wednesday, literally the middle of mid-terms week.

The most unfortunate thing about this tactic is that it is so plainly counterprodcutive. Students will still mobilize around the resignation, and when they do they will have a justified indignation that will make them all the more difficult to appease. Any small advantage the administration has gained in this will be more than offset by its loss of legitimacy.

I cannot understand why the administration at this school is trying so hard to silence debate. The College should have put this announcement off until the week students arrived back from Fall Break. The students would have their say, without being pressured by deadlines, and, in all likelihood, the administration still would have gotten what it wanted.

Instead, Oberlin is destined to spend the rest of the year in shrill debate over the resignation and its lack of context. Ugly charges will be made, and it will become even more difficult to recruit a replacement who is highly competent, happy to go to a college in the middle of nowhere, and also willing to withstand the inevitable criticism from the students, administration, and faculty alike. It is hard enough to recruit a woman of color at all, even without the above qualifications.

Some say the administration got intimidated when it saw, at the forum last week, how much student support Dean Cole-Newkirk had. I say that regardless, the administration blew it when they thought they could prevent student protest with the timing of the "resignation."