Defend tenure for Nagesh Rao
NAGESH RAO is a professor of English at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), a public liberal arts institution. The English Department's personnel committee rejected his tenure application and has recommended that he be denied reappointment. What follows are some of the key facts of the case as well as a petition that will be sent to the Dean of TCNJ.
TEACHING: Since arriving at TCNJ, Dr. Rao has taught many courses that exposed students to world literatures and postcolonial studies. His students have consistently appreciated his classes for exposing them to knowledge that they would not otherwise have encountered. He is much respected and loved by his students for challenging them to think in new and different ways. Teaching evaluations conducted by nine senior colleagues, who have visited his classes 11 times over the last four years, have consistently praised Dr. Rao for his teaching skills.
ACADEMIC RECORD: Rao's publication record has matched or exceeded the output of previous--and successful--applicants for tenure in his department. He arrived at TCNJ four years ago with an established record of publication and has since published two articles in peer-reviewed journals; edited a book of interviews with the late Indonesian novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer; and developed a detailed book proposal. Rao's review letter the previous year praised his accomplishments and put him on track towards tenure if he published another article in the following year. He did so. Yet the English Department's Personnel Committee voted unanimously to deny tenure to Dr. Rao.
SCAPEGOATING: In the fall of 2007, a debate emerged in the English department about the status of the multicultural literature course in the curriculum. Dr. Rao was the elected chair of a group of minority faculty who defended the course, and he took a principled stand in support of a multicultural curriculum. The department remains deeply divided on this issue, and Dr. Rao, a vocal advocate of multiculturalism, is being scapegoated. If he is fired, the fate of the multicultural literature course hangs in the balance.
DIVERSITY: In effect, the denial of tenure to Dr. Rao will set back the effort to bring issues concerning diversity and multiculturalism to TCNJ, a college located in one of the more racially diverse areas of the U.S. Also troubling is the fact that Dr. Rao is one of the few people of color on the Department of English faculty, and the only South Asian, in a state with a significant South Asian population. His exclusion from the TCNJ faculty would be a major step backward after an election in which U.S. society has shown an unprecedented willingness to embrace its growing diversity.
