STAFF EDIT: Cutting class

According to information gathered by The Daily Free Press, Pulitzer Prize winner and renowned professor Isabel Wilkerson has not properly fulfilled her duties as a teacher and a member of the faculty in-residence program at Boston University.

Wilkerson is the director of the Narrative Journalism Program within the College of Communication and has only completed teaching two classes within the Journalism Department at BU due to complications with her publicity schedule for her new book.

According to some students in her classes, Wilkerson began cancelling classes two weeks into the semester to promote “The Warmth of Other Suns,” her new, critically acclaimed book about the Great Migration of African American slaves in the 20th  century. By the middle of October, Wilkerson sent an email to her classes stating that she would not be returning to teach for the rest of the semester.

Additionally, members of the faculty who wished to remain anonymous disclosed that Wilkerson’s salary is rumored to be upwards of $200,000, while the average salary for a professor is closer to $90,000.

It seems clear to both students and faculty that Wilkerson has not adequately fulfilled the requirements that her job at this school demands. COM Dean Thomas Fiedler said in an interview with The DFP that despite the issue this semester, Wilkerson has benefitted COM by “indirectly representing” its program.

Clearly, Wilkerson’s notoriety in the world of academic literature usurps her ability to contribute in a more concrete manner to the Journalism Department of COM. Many professors at this school are well-known, well-respected scholars in their respective fields, but they all make time to interact with their students and teach their subject, and if Wilkerson cannot manage this balance, then she is simply not doing her job.

If she is to remain a professor here, perhaps she should become an adjunct or take a leave of absence to focus on her book. Otherwise both her title and salary should be reevaluated in light of the contributions, or lack thereof, she has made to COM. Students have given her less than flattering reviews on Rate My Professors, and many expressed disappointment and dissatisfaction at her apparent lack of dedication to her students.

Now, more than ever, professors in this country need to focus on their students and their curriculum to pull us out of the slump of the declining quality of higher education. If one of the highest paid professors at this university cannot even deign to come to her class, then what consequences must that hold for the future of higher learning?