Author: Elizabeth Cutler
When asked to write an editorial regarding Occidental College’s 15th President, Jonathan Veitch, Ph.D., my first response was something along the lines of “sure, no problem.” Upon further consideration, however, I acknowledge that this is really not about Dr. Veitch at all, because we as a campus and a community do not know him yet. Instead, it is about the rocky history of leadership at Oxy during the past few years and our concerns and qualms as we prepare to make another significant administrative transition. The current senior class has experienced three separate college presidents and the Class of 2008 had four. In other words, we have good reason to be skeptical of yet another promise of “the ideal person” to represent and lead our school.
In his December 1, 2008 blog entry on The Huffington Post, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth reflected on the true value of a liberal arts education. Roth wrote that “a liberal [arts] education. . . helps us to address problems and potential in our lives with passion, commitment and a sense of possibility. A liberal [arts] education teaches freedom by example, through the experience of free research, thinking and expression [. . . ] it inspires us to carry this example, this experience of meaningful freedom, from campus to community.”
I share this sentiment from the president of another top-notch liberal arts institution because it captures much of what Oxy students, consciously or unconsciously, seek to achieve in their undergraduate experience. We need a college president who has more than an impressive résumé—we need someone with a demonstrated passion for not just understanding but valuing these core aspects of a liberal arts education.
I’ve heard concerns that Dr. Veitch comes from a school too different from our own to “understand” Oxy. True, Eugene Lang College is the liberal arts body of The New School in New York City. The New School is a medium-sized university with a history of experimental teaching methods and includes the World Policy Institute, an internationally-recognized think tank. So yes, The New School differs from Oxy on many levels. Veitch has been Dean, however, of the liberal arts college of The New School for five years. What is now a full-fledged liberal arts college within The New School originally started as a “Freshman Curriculum.” A sizeable contribution by Eugene Lang in the mid-1980s facilitated its transition into the liberal arts college that it is today. We’re talking about a very young institution, and that is why I still feel that Dr. Veitch’s five years with the school are especially advantageous to Oxy: he has been part of a more architectural process at a school that is very much still developing, something that is rare as most liberal arts colleges are extremely well established.
In his five years as Dean, the student body of Eugene Lang College doubled as Dr. Veitch hired over 60 new professors, developed tenure-track options and instituted formal relationships with the Guggenheim and the New York Historical Society. He is also originally from Los Angeles, so it is my hope that this fact coupled with his work taking students out of the classroom and into New York City will mean further enhancement of the community-based learning that comprises a key quality of Oxy.
Plenty of room, of course, still exists for skepticism, doubt and even fear. Dr. Veitch was selected by the same group that chose our last long-term president who didn’t even make it past 18 months. And although I have outlined my reasons why Dr. Veitch’s time as Dean of Eugene Lang College is extremely valuable, it is also of note that academic majors offered there appear slightly different—fewer in total number and featuring titles such as “Social Inquiry.” This difference could prove pivotal or completely irrelevant. We just don’t know yet because although we know our school and we know some information about our new President, only time can tell us how the two will mesh.
Amy Withers is a junior ECLS major. She can be reached at awithey@oxy.edu.
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