For the past eight years, Professor Jim Kuypers has been running a one-man show.
As the sole director and professor of Dartmouth's College Office of Speech, Professor Kuypers receives very limited financial support from the College and is only able to offer students four speech courses.
According to Kuypers, the current status of the speech department is not what was originally envisioned by the Dartmouth Board of Trustees.
Dartmouth College has always offered the study of rhetoric. Until 1980, when speech was established as an Office -- an autonomous academic unit -- it existed in conjunction with the English department.
As an office, speech consisted of a director and three to five professors. The office offered eight to 10 regular courses and two faculty-staff courses until 1994, when all three speech professors retired or resigned.
In 1995, the Dean of the Faculty's Office cut Speech funding.
When Kuypers was hired in 1995, he was not told of the limited funding. He was hired as a visiting assistant professor with the understanding that he would have a colleague and would only remain at Dartmouth for two years.
Eight years later, Kuypers is still here, still alone, and very frustrated, he said.
Every year Kuypers presents a proposal to the Dean of the Faculty to expand and improve the office and every year he comes up against a brick wall, he said.
"This is not to say that I have not had tremendous support," Kuypers said. In particular he notes that College Provost Barry Scherr has been able to reestablish the separate budget for speech but has been unable to obtain the administrative portion of Speech's original budget.
In 1999, at Kuypers' recommendation, Scherr appointed a Blue Ribbon Committee to review the presence and mission of the Office of Speech. The committee voted unanimously to form a program in Speech and convert Kuyper's position to a tenure line. But once again, the school failed to provide funding for such plans.
Though Kuypers is the head of an autonomous academic unit, he has no formal voice at the school. He has senior lecturer status that prevents him from being able to serve on any college committee.
The status of the Office of Speech is currently under the purview of Lenore Grenoble, Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities.
Grenoble said that she does not foresee growth in the speech department.
"Virtually every department on campus wants to expand and to be honest, the Office of Speech is not at the top of the list of priorities," Grenoble said.
With the Dartmouth budget as tight as it is right now, the College must, like every institution, reevaluate its priorities based upon the changing world in which we live.
The emphasis today is on developing departments like Middle Eastern studies, which were ignored three years ago but are now receiving much more attention and student interest, Grenoble explained.
Grenoble said she understands the importance of an education in oratory and would like to make it a more integral part of the Dartmouth curriculum. But she noted that there are other ways to do so than to expand the speech department.
Meanwhile, Kuypers' speech courses receive rave reviews from his students.
"I consider Professor Kuypers' Speech courses the most influential classes I took at Dartmouth ... I am confident that the quality of [my] speeches will be better because of the lessons learned from Prof. Kuypers' classes," Chance Hill '01 said.
The speech courses are so oversubscribed that Kuypers reports having to turn away an average of 20 students per course.
"I could have easily taught four or five courses this term," Kuypers said.
As it is, Kuypers teaches five courses per year -- one more course than most other faculty members.
Looking to more obtainable goals, Kuypers said he hopes to add a new course on African American oratory to the speech curriculum in the fall. The idea has been well received by the faculty and awaits approval from the Humanities and Divisional Council.
In the farther future Kuypers said he would like to be able to offer students a speech minor.
Katherine Sholly '04 was very enthusiastic about this idea. "There are so many interesting classes that could be offered. And the speech discipline transcends so many different aspects of a Dartmouth education -- anyone would benefit from taking these courses," Sholly said.
