Regarding “NES dept. faces warring factions,” Dec. 8:
I would like to clarify one element of your article. One anonymous faculty member of the History Department is quoted as having said “We don’t want him” in reference to assistant professor Michael Doran.
My colleagues have a right to speak — but unless there has been a vote or decision of the faculty with the History Department, no one speaks for the whole.
All appointment decisions in the History Department are voted upon after a thorough discussion of the scholarly merits of case at hand.
This is how we proceed and we invoke very high academic standards that cannot be measured without reading the work and enlisting evaluations from colleagues in peer institutions.
In this sense, we cannot predict our appraisal of what we “want” should it even be relevant.
Jeremy Adelman
History Dept. Chair
