We, the undersigned, petition the following of the administration of Wesleyan University:

I.                   We petition the university to contact U.S. News & World Report and inform the organization that Wesleyan University’s #12 ranking under the category of National Liberal Arts Colleges, in part based on information that the university’s faculty-to-student ratio is 9:1, was erroneously determined. We ask that the university request U.S. News & World Report to reevaluate Wesleyan’s ranking in light of the following information: that the university has recently changed its definition of a full-time visiting professorship in all departments to require professors to teach a fifth course each year. (This proposal will henceforth be referred to as the “indentured servitude proposal.”) Professors who continue to teach four courses will no longer be considered full-time visiting professors, and as such will no longer receive health benefits from the university.                                                                      If, in fact, the university does need its professors to teach five courses each semester in order to meet enrollment demand, as the indentured servitude proposal implies, and in light of the knowledge that the incoming class of 2015 was overenrolled by almost 100 students, the given student-faculty ratio of 9:1 cannot possibly be accurate.

II.                As a particularly severe example of the negative consequences wrought by the indentured servitude proposal, we petition the university to stop advertising its writing program as a viable course of study until the following changes are made:

1.      The university offers professors a course load that allows them to give their students detailed attention and accurate and thorough feedback on the students’ work. While the administration ought to reward professors for their devotion to their work and students, at the very least it should not burden its instructors to the point of forcing them to compromise their educational integrity. We believe it is to the latter that the indentured servitude proposal inevitably leads.

2.      The university increases its number of writing courses so that all interested students have the opportunity to enroll in one course each semester – without jeopardizing the preceding amendment. Many interested students are currently unable to successfully enroll in any writing courses, particularly during their freshman and sophomore year. By the time these students do manage to enroll in a writing course, it is very difficult for them to fulfill the requirements of the Creative Writing Certificate or the English department’s creative writing concentration. Based on our understanding, almost 100 students who pre-registered for writing courses during the fall semester of 2011 were unable to enroll in any course.              As the students and customers of Wesleyan University, we deserve the opportunity to take classes in our area of interest with professors who have the time and ability to teach the courses at the educational level we all deserve.

3.      The university rewards excellent professors and retains them. In addition to the departures of writing professors Matthew Sharpe and Paul LaFarge in past years, Wesleyan will be losing the highly esteemed and award-winning professor and author, Paula Sharp, at the end of this semester. Prof. Sharp, a revered professor of long standing in the College of Letters, has finally been forced to leave the school due to labor issues such as this.    Unfortunately, none of these cases is isolated. Not only does the university stand to lose many of its most esteemed and gifted writing professors – and visiting professors in all departments – as a result of this exploitative proposal, but it can not reasonably expect any well-qualified professor to work under such conditions. We, the students, and the professors deserve better.

      The university’s administration has either failed to understand or willingly ignored the reality of visiting professors’ experiences, the educational needs of the student body, and the active degeneration of Wesleyan’s academic environment perpetrated by the indentured servitude proposal. While the writing department is a particularly severe example of this erosion, its crisis is simply one illustration of a larger and more pervasive fault in Wesleyan’s administrative system.

      The university needs to recognize and reward the time, energy, and commitment all of its professors give to the school, and not continuously devalue their jobs until it is impossible for visiting professors to support themselves on their work here. The administration needs to stop forfeiting the day-to-day experience of the school for external appearances and rankings, and it needs to stop trying to cut corners by severing the heart of the school itself. If teachers and students can no longer take part in the educational environment both of them deserve, what has this school become?

      We, the students of Wesleyan University, ask the administration plainly: what is more important to you than our education?

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