It’s not hard for me to pinpoint when my undergraduate education at the College of St. Scholastica started to make a whole lot of sense. That was when, halfway through her first semester of teaching at the college, Bethany Henning told me, an exercise physiology major in her contemporary philosophy course, that she wanted me to consider joining the philosophy program — or at least take another class with her. I’d never before met a professor so outwardly invested in my education.
It’s also not too hard for me to pinpoint the moment my education at St. Scholastica stopped making sense. That was when I, now a philosophy major in my sixth semester, learned Henning received a contract non-renewal notice from the school.
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Professors like Henning are hard to come by. Beyond her obvious passion for teaching philosophy and impressive ability to get students to enroll in her reading-heavy and sometimes-stressful courses, it's hard to put into words exactly what makes her classroom invaluable for so many students.
To understand why students at St. Scholastica organized an ongoing occupation of the administrative hallway on campus, demanding the college rethink its decision regarding professor Henning’s contract, you'd have to take a class with her or talk to someone who has — something those in administrative roles clearly did not do before beginning to tackle difficult budgeting decisions.
The College of St. Scholastica’s mission is to “provide intellectual and moral preparation for responsible living and meaningful work” and to strive to cultivate five Benedictine values: community, hospitality, the love of learning, respect, and stewardship. These values often feel like superficial ideals to be printed on signs and thrown into speeches. But as I’ve reflected on my time in Henning’s classroom and office following her departure, these values stand out as having been truly embodied in the work she has done. The decision to let her go is a reminder that these values so easily can ring hollow.
This decision also seems to effectively end the philosophy program at CSS, which is integral to the core tenets of the Catholic liberal arts college. Henning is one of two full-time professors in the program. In her absence, the philosophy program will be supported by adjunct professors. It’s a sacrificing of indisposable professor-student relationships for cheap contingent labor, and it makes the hasty assumption that students care more about credit hours or degrees than moral and intellectual preparation. It's offensively clear that the impact on students was not adequately considered in this budgeting decision as anything more than an abstract concept. I and other students feel we are being treated as a population of customers rather than as a community of humans.
The morning after receiving the news, I found myself alongside at least 50 of my peers in a small conference room with our provost. I spoke through tears, pleading with the administration to understand the betrayal I felt. Students came and went from the meeting — STEM and humanities students alike — describing the impact Henning has had and the deep disappointment they felt that the college clearly failed to understand the integral role to the Scholastica community she has taken up in her short time at the school.
Our frustration was, and still is, that the “impact” our provost claimed to have considered is nothing like the impact my classmates feel right now. We feel a budgeting decision was made without enough care and without fully knowing the work Henning does at St. Scholastica.
This highlights a fundamental schism between those making decisions and the students decisions are made in service of, a schism that unfortunately seems pervasive across higher education. At a small liberal-arts school that values community, one would hope those making administrative decisions could immerse themselves within the community, not detach themselves into a disparate and bureaucratic governance.
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Students maintained a presence outside the provost’s office on campus by organizing teach-ins: turning the administrative hallway into a classroom in hopes that CSS officials will be unable to deny the meaning and purpose of our enrollment. Collectively, we demand the decision regarding Henning’s contract be appealed. If this will not happen — if our voice will not be heard — we can only hope this spells the beginning of a change for the College of St. Scholastica and higher education as a whole.
Kai Chill Donnelly is a third-year student of philosophy and media studies at the College of St. Scholastica who helps lead the philosophy club and competes on the cross-country running and skiing teams.
The Trust Project
