Last chance: Professor absences complicate course selection

In preparation for today's course card deadline, many juniors spent part of the weekend choosing some of the last classes they will take during their Princeton careers.

That already difficult decision may have been made even harder, however, when the course guide revealed the array of popular professors who will not be teaching next year.

Senior professors at Princeton are required to spend five consecutive semesters on campus before they are eligible for leave, according to history department chair Philip Nord. "These guys spend three years in one place and go off," he said. "It's a regular cycle. It's not accelerated for anybody."

Politics professor Amy Gutmann, who will go on leave next year to write a book on global and local group identities at the Center of Advanced Studies at Stanford, said the impact of professors who take time off should be minimal for students. "For any student's four-year career, any given teacher will be on campus three of those four years," she said.

For some students, however, when professors go on leave, it is more than an inconvenience.

Bethany Aquilina '01, a politics major, was frustrated when she learned many of the professors she had considered as potential senior thesis advisers would not be on campus next year. "It was a concern because a number of them teach great classes, and the new faculty they bring in [to teach those classes] might not be as good," she said.

Aliya Shariff '01 had a similar experience after taking HIS 317: The Making of Modern India with history professor Gyan Prakash last spring. "I raved about this class to my friends, and a lot of them wanted to take it and were disappointed that it won't be offered," Shariff said, adding that there are "so few classes offered on South Asia" at the University. "There's no one to teach anything on South Asia next year that I know of."

Nord said University regulations concerning the length of time for which professors can take leave are stricter than those at other academic institutions, such as New York University and Dartmouth College. "Senior people do have to have three full years on the spot before they can go away on leave, with few exceptions," Nord said.

He added that he had personal experience with these rules. "I once had a chance to go with my family to England, and my wife [English professor Deborah Nord] wanted to go on leave out of cycle, and they wouldn't let her," he said.

Nord noted that though about one-third of the history department would be on leave in any given year, next year might be unusually high. "Of the three years coming, there'll be more away next year than in the following two," he said, commenting that somewhere between nine and 11 history professors will be on leave next year.

He also addressed the temporary departure of Pulitzer prize-winning history professor James McPherson. "McPherson is unique, a very special case," he said, adding that almost six percent of the student population will take his course in any given year. "His departure will be felt," he said.

Planning ahead

When professors go on leave, departments take measures to compensate for their absence, politics departmental representative Oliver Avens explained. "We try to make sure that the 200-level courses are covered in every year and that there is a fair distribution of courses across the department," he said.

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Nord urged students to ask professors about their future plans to prevent missing out on classes they particularly want to take. "Ask the professor, because the professor is the person who is best informed about his or her plans," he said. "They have more input into this than anyone else."

Gutmann echoed Nord's sentiments. "I often have students who e-mail, and I always answer them," she said. "I can understand why people might be shy and reluctant, but they shouldn't be."

According to Gutmann, students can all but ensure they will be able to take the classes they want by communicating with professors. "I think almost certainly if you're passionate about a course you can take it," she said.

Aquilina said, however, that she did not believe it was practical to expect students to plan their schedules that far ahead. "It's difficult for a freshman to do that. When you're a freshman, you don't have a clue about independent work or what classes you want to take," she said. "I don't think that's a reasonable request."

Nord said going on leave allows professors to stay abreast on developments in their field while preserving their enthusiasm for teaching.

Gutmann expressed a similar point of view. "One of the reasons we put so much into teaching is that we also know that there will be a time when we can sit down and read and write and restore our ability to teach," she said. "I spend so much time when I teach, teaching, that I really do need some time to sit quietly in my study. I relish teaching and I relish writing, but there's only so many hours in the day."

(Staff writer Michael Grabell contributed to this report.)