To the Editor:

The news regarding the tenuous position of associated faculty in the Department of English is disheartening on many levels.

These professional teachers have received the strong support of their colleagues in the department, but they merit the support of the entire university community. Yes, they are accomplished scholars and writers in their own right, but they have been hired specifically for their remarkable abilities as teachers. Despite relatively low pay, they have an outsized impact on the academic lives of students being introduced to the culture of writing at Ohio State. Their loss would be felt across the campus in the form of lower student preparation for taking on the intellectual work of engaging ideas critically and expressing complex thought clearly.

These faculty members do much of the heavy lifting in English 1110, a course of critical importance to students’ first-year experience and their prospects for success in upper level courses and the world beyond.

As the university considers the quality of the student experience, it would do well to support these important members of the teaching community with the assurance of stable employment.

Edgar A. Singleton
Director of First-Year Writing in the Department of English