Office of Speech Shuttered

By Michael J. Ellis | Friday, April 22, 2005

Cicero once said, "I find that many cities have been founded, that the flames of a multitude of wars have been extinguished, and that the strongest alliances and most sacred friendships have been formed not only by the use of reason, but also more easily by the help of eloquence." Now that Professor Jim Kuypers, the College's lone instructor of the art of rhetoric, has been forced out by the administration's apathy and neglect, Dartmouth faces the very real possibility of offering no classes in Cicero's "original" liberal art for the first time in its history.

Michael Audet

—Five books, but no tenure for Professor Jim Kuypers.—

Since even before the days of Daniel Webster, the art of speech has been taught at Dartmouth, and for many years, the English Department was responsible for instructing students in it. In 1920, the study of rhetoric was formalized into a Department of Speech, one of the first in the country. The faculty decided to abolish the Department in 1979, but formed an independent Office of Speech with a stipulation from the Trustees to maintain "instruction in public speaking at the present level."

Throughout most of the 1980s, Dartmouth had four full-time employees in the Office of Speech, offering nine to ten courses per year for students and two courses per year for faculty to help them improve their public speaking skills. But in 1993, the Office changed dramatically. A series of retirements and resignations left Speech devoid of faculty, and plans were made to hire two new professors by 1995. Only one, however, Jim Kuypers, was ever hired, and for ten years he single-handedly managed the Office of Speech, teaching five classes per year and publishing four books without tenure (his fifth is forthcoming).

To remedy the situation, a faculty blue-ribbon panel was appointed in 1999. Led by then-Associate Dean of the Faculty Barry Scherr, the panel found that "a university department consisting of one individual is intrinsically flawed," and said that "the College should reactivate what was once a distinguished field of study at Dartmouth." To do so, the panel recommended putting Kuypers on a tenure track, hiring two additional full-time employees, and forming a program of Rhetorical Studies that students could select as a minor. The panel wrote that "in order to face the world beyond college, students must speak effectively, be able to organize cogent arguments, and be ready to function in an increasingly team-oriented workplace." The report also noted that Dartmouth would not be alone in expanding its speech program: MIT, Holy Cross, Wesleyan, Brown, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, Mount Holyoke, and Smith had all taken similar steps in recent years.

All of these recommendations were disregarded. Since 1999, no substantive changes have been made to the Office of Speech, and Professor Kuypers has languished in neglect. Since no less a figure than the current Provost of the College, Barry Scherr, was one of the authors of the report, the decision to ignore its suggestions must have come from extremely high-up in the administration. Despite being forced to share administrative support with the English Department, Kuypers nonetheless continued to teach five classes a year. Among the basic classes he offered were Informative Speaking, to teach students a formal style of delivery and how to effectively present large quantities of information, Persuasive Speaking, to instruct in the basic principles of rhetorical theory, and Public Advocacy, to teach students how to argue both sides of an issue. Kuypers also taught more specialized courses: this past fall he introduced a new course in African American Oratory (which was cross-listed with the African and African American Studies Department) and this winter he taught a course on Criticism of American Post-War Public Address, focusing on Kuypers's own specialty, presidential rhetoric.

Kuypers taught with verve and consistently earned high marks from students. One student of his, Ashley Donnenfeld '05, remarked that "Kuypers is an enormously dedicated, enthusiastic, and supportive professor. He does a great job of teaching the art of public speaking while remaining sensitive to the myriad abilities and confidence levels of the students in his class." Another, Dartmouth Civil Liberties Union founder Jedidiah Sorokin-Altman '05 said that he felt "extremely fortunate" to have taken Professor Kuypers's classes and found it "distressing" that the College "seems to have decided to let the Office of Speech die."

Kuypers, however, could not remain in such a state indefinitely. After ten years of teaching alone at the College without tenure, he has decided to accept a tenured position with Virginia Tech's Department of Communication. It's difficult to blame him for doing so: Virginia Tech has twenty-two tenured professors in its Communication Department and 850 undergraduate majors. Dartmouth, by contrast, has one professor and no undergraduate majors.

So without Kuypers, what will come of the study of rhetoric at Dartmouth? The administration seems content to let it fade into oblivion, convinced that other classes will pick up the slack and teach public speaking. Associate Dean of the Faculty Lenore Grenoble says that she is "not sure of how we [the College] will proceed with the Office of Speech" but that she thinks the study of rhetoric might be folded in to the Classics Department and that "the technical aspects of public speaking might be better taught elsewhere." But, as Sorokin-Altman put it, other classes might tell students "stand straighter, speak slower, or don't chew gum at the podium, but this is not instruction in the art of rhetoric." And, as good as Dartmouth's classics scholars are, it is doubtful they could do justice to African American oratory or presidential rhetoric.

For the past 80 years, the study of speech has had an autonomous unit at the College, and today's post-industrial age of PowerPoint presentations and videoconferencing makes public speaking all the more important. Given the fact that, to the best of Kuypers's knowledge, no plans have been made to find a successor for a full three months after he informed the administration of his departure, the Office of Speech will likely be no more after this term. Dartmouth will be the worse for it.

Office of Speech Shuttered

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