SDSU Cuts

As a member of San Diego State University’s department of anthropology since 1961, I would like to comment on David Smollar’s (May 25) article in which “several longtime professors” at SDSU characterized the anthropology department, one of those listed to be eliminated, as not having “been highly regarded academically for years” despite having some highly respected individuals.

I’m afraid that a crisis such as the one we are going through at SDSU brings out both the best and worst in people. The truth is that no one with a doctorate in one discipline is competent to judge the worth of a program in another.

The anthropology department has a good national reputation among anthropologists for carrying out our primary mission: the education of students in anthropology. Many of our students have gone on to graduate work in anthropology in other universities and have returned or written to tell us about their excellent preparation, comparable to that of graduates of some of the most prestigious colleges in this country.

Dr. William Stini, professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, was on an external review committee that visited and thoroughly examined our anthropology department last fall. He urged the continuation of our program in a May 18 letter to President Thomas Day that included the following:

“Anthropology’s status as a core discipline in the Liberal Arts was viewed by the committee as being so well-established that any defense of it would be redundant. . . . The abrupt termination of the anthropology program leaves at least 30 graduate students unable to complete their M.A. requirements. Over one hundred undergraduate majors will also be arbitrarily penalized for their interest in anthropology. Dedicated faculty members, among whom are highly respected, internationally recognized scholars, are being deprived of their livelihood without even a decent interval to seek opportunities elsewhere. The damage to the credibility of the institution will be profound and irreparable if the measures to ameliorate these effects are not taken.”

Surely this opinion is more likely to represent the truth than negative statements from non-anthropologists whose names are not revealed. As many other departments are severely cut, I hope we do not continue to see this kind of slanderous justification of these cutbacks made by anonymous faculty seeking to ingratiate themselves with the administration. Office politics, anyone?!

VICTOR GOLDKIND, Professor of Anthropology, San Diego State University