The members of the Department of Sociology enjoyed reading Sam Chapman’s article in the September 15 edition of The Pioneer, assuring Whitman students that we are in fact offering a full range of sociology classes this semester, despite our personnel challenges of the past six months (challenges which are not really all that uncommon at our institution).  However, it is important to clarify that Mr. Chapman’s suggestion that President Bridges was somehow a “solution” to these challenges is not really accurate.

While we are delighted to have President Bridges offering a two-credit upper level seminar on Crime, Law and Punishment to some of our junior and senior sociology majors this fall, it is not the case, as implied in this article, that he is helping us to cover departmental classes that were already scheduled to be taught this year.  President Bridges has a demanding and multifaceted job with many diverse responsibilities, but helping us to staff our courses is not (nor should it be) one of those responsibilities.

In fact, if there is a member of the larger Whitman community who should be thanked for allowing us to offer all of our scheduled courses, that individual is Director of Institutional Research Neal Christopherson, who graciously allowed himself to be lured back into the classroom this fall, thus freeing others on our faculty to shift their course offerings around a bit to do what had to be done to accomplish this objective.  The fact that President Bridges chose this particular semester to return to the classroom (on a limited basis) to share his considerable expertise in criminology and criminal justice with a select group of sociology students was indeed fortuitous, but it really had nothing directly to do with the “dilemma” about which Mr. Chapman writes in his otherwise informative article.

Respectfully,

Keith Farrington
Chair, Department of Sociology