Please circulate this t o anyone sympathetic. From Steven Colatrella:
I will be notified officially in June that I am going to be fired from Mount Mercy college. Below are the reasons as listed by the Dean of the College in a conversation with my department chair of Sociology, Prof. Mohammad Chaichian. Neither involves teaching or anything academic. One is a possible unfair labor practice since it involves comments I made during negotiations over working conditions while on an official faculty body for that purpose, the other is a free speech issue involving a comment I made in support of legalized abortion. I spoke to the Dean today who confirmed that she is meeting with my dept. chair in June to begin the process of firing me. Now is a good time to send emails or phone calls to try to forestall the action before it is taken, or at least to indicate that it will be a costly decision for the college's reputation.
I am asking my friends to send emails to protest or express concern at my impending firing.
Emails can be sent to the Dean of the College, Susan Pauly, at <mailto:spauly at mmc.mtmercy.edu>spauly at mmc.mtmercy.edu.
Emails can mention that only two were comments made by the Dean Pauly, to the chair of Sociology, Prof. Mohammad Chaichian (who has supported me) as to why I will not be renewed after next year:
1) a comment I made that the "college is going in the wrong direction" in reference to the unilaterally rewritten new faculty manual presented by the administration that allows tenured faculty to be fired at the whim of the administration (for "unsatisfactory performance" - left undefined), allows the Dean to force faculty to teach additional courses if they have low enrollement (left undefined) and allows the President (who has the final say now on all grievances even ones brought against himself) to eliminate whole departments for budgetary purposes unilaterally. The comments were made as part of negotiations over this manual revision while I was on an elected body, the Faculty Welfare Committee, whose task is to negotiate working conditions with the administration.
2) a comment I made at a faculty/staff meeting in reference to a survey conducted by administrators of our students, showing that only 25% of female students (who are 80% of the student body) support keeping abortion legal - half the students surveyed were nursing majors, our biggest major. I said "That we are sending out a lot of students who will work in the medical profession and are a priori opposed to a medical procedure that in many cases is a matter of life and death for women raises a grave ethical concern". I said nothing else on the matter. Yet the Dean claims that this comment suggests that I do not belong at a Catholic college (one where half the students are not Catholic, like many of the faculty and staff).
I would appreciate it if emails sent to the Dean are forwarded to me at <mailto:stevencolatrella at hotmail.com>stevencolatrella at hotmail.com, so that I can keep track of the level of support for press purposes. Susan Pauly can also be reached by phone at 319-363-8213. I can be reached at 319-366-1078.
Thank you,
Steven Colatrella
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A bit more bio information on me if it helps: I am the author of "Workers of the World: African and Asian Migrants in Italy in the 1990s" (Africa World Press Trenton and Asmara: 2001). I was Fulbright Scholar in 1997, and have taught at Bard College, at the American University of Rome, the New School University, Montclair State University, Loyola University's Rome, Italy center. I am currently Assistant Professor Sociology at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and for the 2003-2004 academic year I am the current President of the Iowa Sociological Association. I have worked on the editorial boards of Midnight Notes and Altreragioni, the latter journal based in Italy. My Ph.D. is in Sociology from Binghamton University, SUNY, from 1998. I am a former organizer with two unions, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Committee of Interns and Residents, and the former national Student Organizer for the National Lawyers Guild, and worked for four years for the late Edith Tiger at the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, now part of the Center for Constitutional Rights.