Everyone's To Blame, Everyone's To Lose in Otteson Saga

He excited current and future students, put on the table millions of dollars for the next several years, and had a vision and a strategy for turning the YC Honors Program into one the best in the country. We'll never share a religion or a football team with Notre Dame (Dr. Otteson's alma mater), but we could have at least sampled their top twenty education.

Yet instead of revolutionizing our institution, he highlighted what precisely is so difficult to change in this university - for better or for worse - and why President Richard Joel's banner of change might need more wind behind its sails.

The administration and several faculty members complained about Dr. Otteson's poor communication. While we found it difficult to pin down precisely to what that referred, we can certainly see how those complaints emerged. Imagine this scenario: Bring to the scene an individual ignorant of the scars of YU internecine battles dating back decades (which surprisingly several sources referenced in discussing the issue). Give him competing instructions: to develop proposals independently of an Honors faculty committee (naturally snubbing faculty), and to ensure that his plans could pass any eventual faculty vote (requiring faculty goodwill). Have him involved in confidential discussions with charitable institutions that require him to find two professors without a national search and open discussion. Throw in his unapologetic political conservatism in a faculty lounge of liberals (which many students and even multiple professors acknowledge made an impact), and his penchant for taking a fresh look at faculty culture. He then proposes to inject major change into the status quo - towards the greater autonomy he coveted when he first arrived, and against the faculty control to which professors obviously clung. Finally, his unapologetically conservative blog becomes public. Why wouldn't you expect faculty discontent?

Dr. Otteson could have taken certain steps to lessen any furor and gain a better sense for what the faculty would swallow. Though he asserts that the administration told him not to worry about faculty interference, he could have consolidated his position through regular informal consultations with faculty and conceded on the symbolic issues (such as listing courses as exclusively 'Honors') that convinced faculty he wanted an Honors Program empire. In short, he should have acted more like a politician.

Further, we felt nearly all of his blog entries were benign and several drew unfair criticism. Still, whether his more controversial posts were offensive or playful, they were foolish to print. As college students learn every day, the internet is a public domain. Yet even the most provocative posts did not warrant a dismissal from his directorship. And faculty members who claim it was the last straw in a communication breakdown should ask themselves if he lightheartedly cited an article decrying men's right to vote, as we ourselves have seen and laughed off, whether that would have earned his exit.

But claims that Dr. Otteson lacks integrity and communication skills appear partly belied by his rapport with many students and the high praise of former colleagues. Fifty-one students signed a petition defending him (with no food to spur them on!) and many Honors students enjoyed his thoughtfulness and responsiveness. Moreover, upon receipt of the faculty letter, he and the administration made a U-turn: they didn't hire the candidates, they slowed down the curriculum review and they reached out to faculty. With the substantive issues in their pocket, it is unclear whether the faculty would have rebelled over the blog's contents; and without a formal survey of the faculty or an open letter, there is no sure way to know.

All the same, while we disagree both with the decision YU made and the process by which they made it, we understand their rationale. When a basketball team rebels against the coach, the general manager nearly always has an easy call to make: however petulant the players, the coach must go. Dr. Otteson, due to factors inside and outside his control, allegedly lost faculty support; if so, he could hardly hang around too long. And while it is generally good for the faculty to feel confident, this will make it far harder for the permanent Honors Director or any administrator to bring about the major changes that will be necessary at some point.

"Life isn't fair," JFK supposedly said, "but government should be." While there may have been some justifications, Dr. Otteson was treated unfairly - by faculty who did not discriminate between Dr. Otteson's own initiatives and administrative instructions, and by an administration which cut him loose so quickly after the blog was revealed. Most injured, however, are the students who not only lost a brilliant, young academic bringing change they could believe in, but now realize the difficulty for anyone, from the president down, to implement transformative changes at Yeshiva College.