The Folly of 'Faculty Deans'

Contributed by Richard Y. Rodgers

Credit: Margaret Maloney via Wikimedia

Harvard University, some years ago, decided to discard the title of “House Master” in favor of the thoroughly uninspired “Faculty Dean.” The justification was that “master” carried connotations of slavery, and in an effort to appease the ever-watchful inquisitors of the postmodern age, the administration opted to gut the English language rather than defend its own traditions. And so, in one fell swoop, a venerable title—rooted not in the cotton fields of the antebellum South but in the ancient universities of Europe—was cast aside, replaced by a term so anemic and bureaucratic it would be better suited to a municipal office than the halls of Harvard.

One might have hoped that Harvard, priding itself on its history and rigor, would resist the urge to capitulate to the ever-new waves of performative outrage. But no—when the winds of fashionable indignation blew through Cambridge, the administration, as ever, bent the knee with an alacrity that would make even the most practiced courtier blush. The decision took little time—the plan to abandon the Harvard tradition of House Masters was announced in December 2015, and the change to Faculty Dean was realized in February 2016. On the subject, Dean Rakesh Khurana intoned:

“It’s an ancient word that is now being used in a 21st-century context, and that layers on new meanings that we have to grapple with. ‘Master’ is rooted in the Latin term magister, a form of address for scholars and teachers that ties back to the medieval universities of Europe. But when we use it in the context of a university in the United States—a country with a history of slavery and of racial discrimination—that adds meaning and significance to the term that we can’t easily dismiss by focusing narrowly on its classical roots.”

Actually, yes, we can—and indeed, should—dismiss this nonsense. For here, in all its resplendent absurdity, is the essence of the administrative mind: an eagerness to graft grievance onto the most innocuous aspects of life, coupled with a terror of being seen as insufficiently sensitive to the ever-expanding roster of chronic victims.

Let us pause for a moment to consider the implications of this change. The title “House Master” has existed for centuries in universities around the world, denoting a scholar who oversees the intellectual and social life of a residential college. It has nothing—nothing—to do with slavery. The word “master” appears in dozens of academic and professional contexts: master’s degrees, master craftsmen, chess masters, masterworks of art. Are we to eliminate these as well, lest someone take offense? Shall we rename the Old Masters of painting, lest their luminous canvases conjure up the ghosts of plantation overseers?

And what of Harvard’s own traditions? The university issued its undergraduate diplomas, at least until 1961, in Latin, and still does so for master’s degrees, MBA, PhDs, JDs, et cetera, yet no one seems troubled by that language’s unfortunate association with, say, the Roman slave economy.

But of course, none of this is about logic or consistency. It is about demonstrating the progressive political posture. In the modern university, one must always be seen doing something—even if that something is utterly pointless. The administration’s decision to abandon “House Master” in favor of the drab and lifeless “Faculty Dean” accomplishes precisely nothing, save for furthering the now-ritualized dismantling of Western traditions in the name of progress. It is an act of linguistic vandalism, one that cheapens the university and infantilizes its students, suggesting that we are incapable of distinguishing between a title with medieval academic origins and the horrors of American slavery.

At this point, the only reasonable course of action is to reinstate the proper title. Let Harvard reject the absurd notion that words must be endlessly mutilated to accommodate the insecurities of the perpetually aggrieved. If the university cannot even summon the courage to defend its own nomenclature, then what, exactly, does it stand for?

No doubt the same administrators who caved to this frivolous controversy would tremble at the thought of restoring the proper term. But tradition is worth defending, and precision in language is worth preserving. The time has come to put an end to these linguistic charades and to once more call the House Masters by their rightful name.