As the battle between the understaffed and underfunded in UW-Madison's Department of Comparative Literature and the College of Letters and Science drags on, the department may be in danger of being phased out, said a recent letter posted on the department's website.
""After more than six years of cynical neglect by the College, we are dangerously understaffed,"" read the Dec. 22, 2006 update letter. ""So we face the new year with a renewed vision of how important the discipline and the department are to the campus and the community and with a tremendous challenge to our success.""
Department Chair Prospero Saiz expressed his frustration with the dean of the College of Letters and Science, Gary Sandefur, for Sandefur's failure to replace departed comp lit staff.
""The dean is refusing to fund us in any way and we're undergoing a transformation that we're working on now to use the resources available to us on campus,"" Saiz said. ""The important thing is that there is a refusal to replace departing faculty and that's what's hurting us because we're shrinking.""
Lewis Keith Cohen, former UW-Madison comp lit department chair, was fired in April 2006 after being charged with using a UW-Madison computer for child pornography and attempted child enticement.
Sandefur said decisions about the allocation of dwindling resources across departments must be made carefully.
""We have really difficult budgetary times and we can't spare the resources that are needed in order to rebuild the Department of Comparative Literature by replacing people who have left or who might leave in the future,"" Sandefur said.
The department will no longer exist in coming years, and degrees will be offered through a program instead. Sandefur said he hopes remaining faculty in the department will continue to work with those who study comp lit in other departments to continue such a program.
""I think the redefinition of the department will occur pretty quickly, and over time we'll begin to bring in people from more and more departments into the program,"" Sandefur said.
Concerns stemming from UW-Madison comp lit graduate students were voiced in a letter to the College of Letters and Science Academic Planning Council Oct. 17, 2006.
""All of us chose this discipline and, in particular, the department at UW-Madison, specifically because of the academic rigor, the intellectual engagement and the enthusiasm which can only be nurtured within the space of an autonomous department rooted in the critical, historical and literary tradition of the discipline,"" the letter read.
UW-Madison graduate student and participant in the letter to the administration, Mayra Cerda-Gomez, said she still has three years of Ph.D. training left in comparative literature and would not be happy if the department was dissolved.
""I hope that the situation will be solved favorably and that the Department of Comparative Literature will continue going on as it has been in existence for 80-some years,"" Cerda-Gomez said.
""I want to have it as a department, and not just for me and for my classmates, but for future generations—it is just a great department.""
Mary Layoun, former UW-Madison Comp Lit Department chair, said though the department has always been small, she hopes it can garner support from the administration.
""Comparative literary and cultural training is a fundamental part of citizenship and education in the 21st century and I hope we can continue to demonstrate that and get support,"" she said.
Although the department is currently offering all of its courses and degrees to UW-Madison students, Saiz said it remains a challenging task.
""It's difficult because there's so few of us but all of our courses and all of our requirements...we're still doing it—I just don't know how long we can keep doing it,"" Saiz said.
