Fredonia Cuts Kershnar, Kills Philosophy Program
“The BA Philosophy was approved for discontinuation and the Philosophy minor will be sunset, which will abolish the Philosophy department, and your continuing appointment will be terminated as of the close of business August 31, 2026.”
That is an excerpt from a March 11th letter from Stephen Kolison, Jr., the president of the State University of New York at Fredonia, to philosophy professor Stephen Kershnar.
Readers may recall that Dr. Kershnar, a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, was barred by Kolison in 2022 from teaching his courses after a right-wing social media trolling account posted selectively edited excerpts from an appearance of Kershnar’s on a philosophy podcast. Details about those events are here. A source informs me that Kershnar’s lawsuit against Kolison and the university is ongoing.
The Department of Philosophy at Fredonia was first threatened in 2018. After the philosophy department chairs at all of the SUNY Campuses came to Fredonia Philosophy’s defense, it was spared. But in 2023 it was targeted again, and the proposal to end the philosophy major was approved in 2024.
The Philosophy Department and its programs are being abolished “as a result of a curtailment of function and reallocation of resources,” Kolison’s letter said. There were no further details about the decisions.
Horrible news. Also, I was surprised that someone had “liked” this and was trying to see what was up with that, and inadvertently “liked” this twice myself. That doesn’t seem to be reversible. Oops.
I believe the “likes” can be about the fact that Daily Nous is covering this important event, as opposed to the content.
“Would they not say that the ascent was a waste of time? And if they had the opportunity, do you suppose that they might raise their hands against him“
One of my colleagues in graduate school at UMass, Neil Feit, was at SUNY Fredonia for many years. A scholar and a gentleman — the professor his students deserved. What a loss to the students.
I believe Dr. Feit retired a few years ago. I’m a grad of the PHL Program at Fredonia and had a ton of interaction with Dr. Feit, Dr. Kershnar and the rest of the department. This is definitely a loss for the school’s community and for the students interested in learning how to think around problems and issues.
“as a result of a curtailment of function and reallocation of resources,” So, they will no longer offer ANY philosophy courses? Thinking has no function in the university anymore? “relocation of resources” usually means (a) adding more administrators or (b) funding new majors like dog grooming, plumbing, social work (OK, a decent major but look at the job prospects…) And this is in NY…
They’ll likely continue to offer the classes, but they can get adjuncts to teach them.
I’m a faculty member at a state school in Louisiana. Here, tenure works in what seems to be the same way it works in the SUNY system: Tenure attaches to academic programs, not colleges or departments. If they eliminate the academic program(s) that you are affiliated with, then your tenure status is eliminated as well.
We had this happen with geography a few years ago. They eliminated the geography ba due to it graduating a small number of majors every year (below whatever threshold the state set), and so the 2 or 3 tenured faculty in geography were terminated as well. But UNO still teaches geography classes — they’re just taught by adjuncts now.
In fact, from the standpoint of many administrators, there is no downside to replacing expensive tenured faculty members (who can stand up to administrators) with cheap powerless adjuncts (who are hired by and report directly to administrators).