OPINION & EDITORIAL
Sapiro for provost
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by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Sunday, January 15, 2006
It has become frightfully clear that the search-and-screen committee for the University of Wisconsin's new provost was at best a remarkable fiasco and, at worst, an exercise in incompetence of the highest degree.
Not only has the committee failed to give Chancellor John Wiley a viable list of candidates for the high post, but the trio of choices presented includes someone who has since been hired by the University of Kentucky and a radical feminist who advocates, among other controversial techniques, single-sex collegiate classrooms. Equally troublesome is whom the beleaguered committee has excluded from its list of finalists. That Virginia Sapiro, the interim provost and a widely respected three-decade veteran of the Madison community, has not been offered as a finalist reeks of either petty personal bias among committee members or a startling lack of judgment.
Little is known on the UW campus about Indiana University Dean Kumble Subbaswamy, one of the three finalists, and little ever will be known considering that Mr. Subbaswamy has seen fit to accept a position at Kentucky. He may well have been a fine administrator and solid choice, but the committee either didn't realize his status in Wildcat country or treated it with indifference.
Sue Rosser, another one of the finalists, strikes us as deeply troubling. Though she has, as dean of the Ivan Allen College at Georgia Tech, helped build a solid liberal-arts program, Ms. Rosser holds some unconventional — if not radically backward — views on methods to increase female participation in the sciences.
In 1998, the Independent Florida Alligator, a student newspaper, reported that Ms. Rosser believes men can pose an academic distraction and single-sex learning environments may be preferable, quoting her as saying, "It comes down to the fact that students and faculty can concentrate on the subject matter in the classroom." The controversial administrator reinforced this notion in a 1999 panel discussion at Colorado College. Recently, she discussed such beliefs in an interview with The Badger Herald, though she stated she would not seek such reforms at UW if hired.
A brief perusal of Ms. Rosser's post-doctoral work reveals little more than a litany of books dedicated to the advancement of women in the sciences, including, "Teaching the Majority," "Female-Friendly Science," "Re-Engineering Female Friendly Science," "Women, Science and Society: The Crucial Union," "The Science Glass Ceiling" and "Feminism and Biology: A Dynamic Interaction."
Among her suggestions to help further women in the sciences, according to the aforementioned Colorado College transcript, is this little gem: "Use less competitive models to practice science."
And Ms. Rosser's administrative work is hardly a shining beacon, either. A former Georgia Tech professor, herself a woman who worked under the Ivan Allen College dean, tells The Badger Herald, "Some of my male colleagues felt that she did not support them as well as she should have, and whether or not that was because of some intrinsic ideological position she was taking … I don't know." The same former professor is quick to note, "She flew off the handle a little more readily than she should have sometimes," adding, "A lot of people felt she was not supporting them and a lot of faculty left. … Many of the people I respected a great deal … left." This is partially substantiated by an Oct. 5, 2001, article in The Technique, the Georgia Tech student newspaper, reporting a notable exodus of faculty after Ms. Rosser was named dean.
In stark contrast to Ms. Rosser is Ms. Sapiro, a widely respected administrator who has dedicated her professional life to the betterment of UW. More than a quarter century of service to the Madison community is merely a highlight of her career, which has included excellent work as the interim provost, serving as acting chancellor for a brief period last fall and heading two academic departments. And, to be sure, if UW needs a women's rights advocate to helm the office, Ms. Sapiro meets this criterion, too, having headed the women's studies department at one point during her proud tenure and having also chaired the political science department.
There is precedent within the UW System for a chancellor to accept the recommendations of a search-and-screen committee while also adding a finalist of his or her choosing. Mr. Wiley would be well advised to follow this course of action and insert Ms. Sapiro into the pool of finalists.
In the coming months, the UW community will become further acquainted with the two remaining candidates (though one is already a member of the Madison faculty). But the position of this board — that Ms. Sapiro would make a decidedly fine choice for the high office — remains unchanged. And though it is certainly too early to pass judgment on UW Dean Patrick Farrell's candidacy, the only thing that has become apparent since the end of autumn is that the search-and-screen committee has failed to provide a better option than the interim provost herself.
