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Loyola University • New Orleans • Volume 101 • Issue 12 • May 5, 2023

THE MAROON For a greater Loyola

Heath feels dismissal was targeted By Macie Batson mmbatson@my.loyno.edu @maciembats

As Loyola University’s only Black English professor continues to fight for reinstatement, many faculty and students are drawing attention to broader institutional issues, including a lack of diversity among professors and concerns regarding contract renewal policies. Scott Heath, a tenure-track professor who is also the director of Loyola’s African and American studies program, said he was not provided with prior notice of a contract renewal vote. Contracts for non-tenured faculty are reviewed on an annual basis, according to university spokeswoman Rachel Hoormann. Periodically, non-tenured, tenure-track professors are required to submit a letter similar to a job application for review. Once that application is submitted, the department’s tenured professors must review it along with their performance and vote on whether or not their contract should be renewed. Heath failed to meet the deadline to submit the application. An emergency trip Shortly before it was time for the English department to review his contract, which took place in October of last year, Heath’s lifelong best friend unexpectedly died. Heath said he remained in North Carolina for two weeks in September to take care of his best friend and make funeral arrangements. As soon as he learned of his friend’s death, Heath said he called the English Department to inform them of the situation and emailed his students he would have to cancel class due to an emergency. “Everybody knew where I was going,” he said. “And I know the English Department knew because they sent flowers to the funeral home.” During his two-week emergency trip, Heath said he still remained engaged with his students and kept them updated

on how long he would be there. “I would email them and say, ‘alright y’all, I’m gonna be here longer than I thought, so read this so that we can stay on schedule.’ We’ve been taught to work remotely anyway,” Heath said. “I never actually took time off. I was still teaching my class.” Heath said he was contacted by the chair of the English Department, Tim Welsh, asking if Heath would like an extension on the deadline to submit his application, which he was granted. Heath said he was given no specific deadline and did not know how long the extension was going to be. But Heath said at some point, a vote on his contract renewal happened. “I say at some point because I was not aware of this meeting; otherwise, I would have quickly put together my letter,” he said. Heath said he presumed that the lack of materials available for the department to review led to an automatic decision not to renew his contract. Since then, Heath and two of the five professors who voted on his contract have been trying to reverse that decision. The Maroon reached out to the English Department for comment regarding Heath’s situation, but Chair of the English Department, Tim Welsh, declined to issue any formal statement. Three-fifths majority Tenured English professors and co-directors of the Center for Editing and Publishing, Mark Yakich and Christopher Shaberg, were the only two professors who voted to renew Heath’s contract, according to Yakich and Schaberg. But even as they were voting, Schaberg, who was a part of the committee involved in hiring Heath, said neither he, nor Heath, fully comprehended the severity of the situation at that time. “It was a very confusing meeting,” Schaberg said. “But I don’t think anything he did warrants him losing his job.” Schaberg expressed deep concerns with the meeting, noting that without Heath present and lacking any relevant

Scott Heath teaches Black cinema course on May 2, 2023. Heath is the only Black English professor. Hannah Bauer/The Maroon

documents to review, the situation was “deeply problematic” in his view. “There have been so many junctures where we could have rerouted and stopped this,” Schaberg said. Schaberg also recalled a portion of the meeting where Yakich asked them to imagine how it might feel to be a Black man surrounded by white colleagues — in a university and bureaucracy built by whites — and how that might affect one’s ability to ask for help. “That’s a position none of us will ever know,” Yakich said. Yakich said that this situation brought to light certain aspects of the university’s contract renewal process that have been previously overlooked. “[Heath’s] case has put into question how university policies and procedures have failed a faculty member and how the system of ‘shared governance’ itself should change, particularly as tenured faculty numbers dwindle and the university relies on ‘contingent faculty,’” Yakich said.

Contingent faculty are faculty members who do not have the authority to vote on contract renewals or promotions. Yakich said that Loyola has a responsibility to support its faculty and staff in the same way that it supports its students. “Although I voted to renew Dr. Heath, I know that I failed him,” Yakich said as he recalled not reaching out to Heath when his friend died and later when his contract was being reviewed. “But I could also say that I was indolent, or that I assumed everything was okay, or that I thought the system would usher him along just fine. I was wrong.” Heath said he felt like his dismissal was planned, and it seems like a few members of the English Department took the opportunity to remove him while he was at his most vulnerable. Schaberg said that the decision not to renew Heath’s contract has caused division within the English Department. The other tenured professors who

were involved in the voting process, Hillary Eklund, Sarah Allison, and Tim Welsh, all declined to comment. Students rally for Heath Since the decision, Heath said he has gone through many hoops to try and keep his job, including what he described as a lengthy appeals process, which has not yet resulted in any progress. Heath said the process has felt “ isolating, alienating, humiliating, and stigmatizing.” After weeks of waiting around and hearing nothing, Heath said he felt like he was buying into a “culture of silence.” “When students began to ask about next year, I realized that it would be unfair of me, and even unprofessional of me, to just secretly disappear from Loyola without students knowing what was going on,” Heath said.

See HEATH, page 9

SGA cabinet confirmations on hold until fall

Farewell to beloved professor

By Kloe Witt

By Jackie Galli

kgwitt@my.loyno.edu @kloewitt22

“It’s a shit show,” is how the Student Government Association’s senator for the College of Music and Media, Chloe Bernier, described the current climate of the SGA here at Loyola after they have delayed the confirmation of the cabinet for the 2023-24 school year. Only three out of the seven candidates were confirmed by the senate in late March. Four of the seven cabinet candidates lost their nomination and failed to reach the minimum vote threshold. An emergency senate meeting scheduled for April 16 to address this issue was later canceled.

which is why we had to call a last-minute senate session,” said SGA President Makayla Hawkins. To confirm canHowever, an didates, each mememail sent by the Among the unapproved ber of the senate incoming SGA Vice has three options: cabinet was the 2022President, Sydney yay, nay, or abstain. Randall, on April 14 To be confirmed, 23 president Stephanie told senators they candidates must re- Oblena, who ran to were not allowed ceive yays from twoto abstain from the thirds of the senate. serve as the Director of vote, and if they “What made it wished to vote no, different this year is Equity and Inclusion. they had to prepare that since it was the a reason why in the last senate of the semester, there was a emergency meeting. lot of people that were absent as well as there were a lot of abstention from See CABINET, page 2 voting, so it wasn’t a full voting count, Voting pressure

jegalli@my.loyno.edu @Jackie_Galli

During one of history professor Behrooz Moazami’s classes, the room was having a group discussion, something very typical for his style of teaching. The students were talking about the writer’s argument for an assigned reading. Moazami asked Jennifer Hunt, a double major in history and women’s studies at the time, a question. After her answering, he then told her something that would strike fear in many students’ hearts: “Now go stand up at the front of the room. They’re going to start asking you questions.”

“Without warning, prompting, preparation, anything, he made me stand up at the podium in front of the room and just defend the perspective of this writer to, like, 20 of my classmates,” Hunt said. After she was done, the class broke into cheers. “I killed it,” Hunt said. “I would have never expected it out of myself. I would have never done it for myself.” Following her time at the front, Hunt said she looked over to Moazami. “He just had the proudest look on his face,” Hunt said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, he knows something about me that I don’t know.’”

See BEHROOZ, page 2

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