English Dept. faces loss of several profs

Maureen Quilligan and Elisa New join Houston Baker in leaving Penn. English Professor Maureen Quilligan this week accepted a job as undergraduate chairperson of Duke University's English Department effective January 1, making her the third faculty member in the department to accept a position elsewhere and the second to defect to the Durham, N.C., school this year. Quilligan -- who began teaching at the University in 1983 and is a published Renaissance scholar -- is currently abroad in Spain and was not available for comment. Earlier this month, longtime English Professor Houston Baker, the former director of the African-American Studies Program, announced that he, too, would accept a position as a senior professor of English at Duke. And English Professor Elisa New, who serves as undergraduate chairperson of Penn's English Department, announced in January that she would accept a position at Harvard University after teaching at Penn for 10 years. English Department Chairperson Wendy Steiner said Quilligan, Baker and New "are part of the fabric of the department." She said Duke is so actively recruiting faculty from Penn because Duke's department is in dire need of rebuilding after losing several top professors of its own. "We're not going to Duke asking Duke people to come to us -- we think that's sort of desperate on their part," Steiner said. By January, Duke could add as many as five new tenured members to its English department -- aside from the recent acquisitions of Quilligan and Baker -- with offers currently in the works to English scholars from Columbia University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Michigan, the University of Colorado and the University of Washington. And with only 34 current full-time English professors, Penn's English Department -- which at one time had as many as 42 faculty members -- is understaffed and in need of active recruiting for next year. "We need to have more faculty in order to function," Steiner added. "When you get understaffed, you get overworked." She stressed that the changes in faculty will allow for departmental rebuilding at the beginning and middle levels. "Now we have an opportunity to get a whole lot of new blood," she said. The department will compensate for the losses by bringing at least three junior faculty members -- from Johns Hopkins University, Rutgers University and the University of Georgia -- to Penn next year. "The department is a very healthy place with a strong group of people," Steiner said. "We are going to do vigorous hiring for next year." New said that the movement within the department is "not a trend so much as a coincidence." "I am extremely happy at Penn, but when Harvard came after me, I assessed my whole life," she said. "If I didn't go there I wasn't going to go anywhere." New said she thinks the other faculty members also have reached points in their lives that call for change, whether it be for geographical or personal reasons. And Steiner added that professors from the pre-baby boom generation are in the process of retiring and several institutions are now "trying to hire massive numbers of people." Earlier this month, School of Arts and Sciences Dean Samuel Preston unveiled the school's new strategic plan, part of which calls for increased funding to and hiring in six key departments, including English.