Stanford Creative Writing Determined to Do the Wrong Thing

In a public relations release credited to the “Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences staff,” we are told that “Stanford Creative Writing revitalizes its vision amid growing demand.” The following text contains a level of spin and obfuscation that would make the most hardened political operative blush. I have ceased to be surprised by shortsighted, counterproductive things happening in higher education institutions. Over the years, writing in this space, I have exercised much disbelief and outrage over actions that are demonstrably anti-learning and/or that exploit the hard work of the nontenured laboring underclass. My present attitude is reflected in the lyrics from Elvis Costello’s “The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes,” where he opens the song by singing, Oh, I used to be disgusted And now I try to be amused Most Popular Students turn to AI to do their assigned readings for them Penn’s Amy Wax punished for statements but won’t lose job Could a pro-Palestinian protest lead to student deportation? I am trying to be amused in the Costello-ian sense, rather than disgusted here, and it is proving difficult. As concisely as possible, I’m going to try to summarize what has been happening with creative writing at Stanford in recent weeks. In advance of the start of the academic year, all currently employed Jones Lecturers, who do the vast majority of the teaching of undergraduate creative writing, were told that they would be fired, some at the end of this academic year, and others at the end of the next academic year. These lecturers, some of whom have 10, 15 or 20 years of experience at Stanford, will be replaced by new Jones Lecturers on term-limited three-year contracts. So, in essence, Stanford is “revitalizing” its undergraduate creative writing program by firing all the people who built it. The revitalization is not a question of improving quality, because, as the press release makes clear, the quality of instruction is off-the-charts high. As one example, the press release cites “unprecedented growth” in student interest in creative writing. It also praises “popular classes” like the Graphic Novel Project and Novel […]

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