Folklore Department struggles to survive amid faculty losses

The Folklore and Folklife Department may be on its way to achieving endangered species status unless administrative priorities shift under the next School of Arts and Sciences dean. The department, which currently has six standing faculty members and three adjunct professors, has seen its numbers dwindle substantially in recent years, Folklore Department Chairperson Margaret Mills said. Over the past five years, about one-third of the Folklore professors have taken leave or left the University permanently, for various reasons. Mills herself will be taking a year-long absence from the department this spring to head Ohio State University's Near Eastern Studies Department. Although Mills is a tenured professor who has devoted 14 years to the department, Penn has not countered OSU's offer. Folklore Professor John Roberts, who currently on leave at OSU, has also received an offer from the school -- to head its English Department. Penn officials have yet to make a counter response. Explaining why the department has not filled any of its vacant positions, Interim SAS Dean Walter Wales said it is standard procedure not to replace faculty members unless they resign from their positions. He added that the school's reaction to job offers from other colleges depends on the terms of the offer, the faculty member's current appointment and "the economic health of [SAS]." But Folklore doctoral student Cati Coe said she worries this wave of faculty losses may jeopardize the department's future. "[Administrators] won't kill the department outright because it would lead to a huge outcry from the people, so they'll just kill it from neglect," she said. After hearing about Mills' offer from OSU last spring, Coe and 14 other graduate students wrote a letter to the Faculty Senate stressing the need to maintain support for the department. According to Faculty Senate Chairperson Vivian Seltzer, a Social Work professor, Senate representatives met with President Judith Rodin and Provost Stanley Chodorow to discuss the potential loss of Mills. Both administrators, however, said it was Wales' decision. The student delegation then organized a meeting with Wales to show their support for Mills. "We are all people whom Mills has affected," Coe said. Wales, however, told the students that as interim dean, it would be "inappropriate" to change SAS priorities. He added that Folklore is not a top priority. "All departments are not equally valuable to SAS," he said. "The Department of English, for example, is much more essential to the school's educational mission than are many of the other humanities departments." Nevertheless, Wales said the administration has no plans to eliminate the Folklore Department. But Mills said, "If people leave and you don't give them sufficient incentives to stay, then you don't need any plans to close the department." Although the department is one of the only doctoral Folklore programs in North America, the discipline does not receive respect from some members of the University community who question the marketability of Folklore degrees, she said. Coe, however, cited a number of employment options for prospective folklorists. "Our work has a lot of different applications for the medical, education and business communities," she said. Mills added that the department's 12 undergraduate majors do more than just study fairy tales. And Folklore Undergraduate Chairperson Regina Bendix said recent endorsements from the White House prove that Folklore can operate on a pre-professional track. "President Clinton seems to [value our work], or else William Ferris, a graduate of our department, would not be his likely new nominee for the National Endowment for the Humanities chairmanship," she said.