After months of speculation, some say University policies within the government and foreign affairs department may result in the departure of one of the most popular lecturers at the University.
Caught in the middle of the understaffed department is James R. Sofka, a lecturer for foreign affairs. In 1998, Sofka was brought to the University under the expectation that he would hold a dual appointment in both the Center for Governmental Studies and in the government department. He devotes half his time and receives half his salary as the center's resident scholar.
The other half comes from being a teaching fellow for the government department, which currently needs more teaching faculty to accommodate its large program. With 650 students, government and foreign affairs is the University's most popular major.
But the University may reassign Sofka to teach through the Division of Continuing Education, which would prevent him from teaching undergraduate courses, advising students and having an office.
Sofka says he is willing to stay at the University as long as he still is assigned to the government department.
"I do not seek a tenure-track position in the government department," Sofka said. "All that I seek is to maintain my half-time affiliation with the government department."
"I am choosing to leave the University next year since it obviously does not value my demonstrated record," added Sofka, who also is the adviser for the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, the executive director for the Government and Foreign Affairs Honors Program and the department's associate undergraduate program director.
According to David O'Brien, a government professor, the University's primary concern in keeping Sofka in the government department is that it has not been determined who will pay the part of Sofka's salary that the center does not provide. Sofka now makes $43,800 between his two positions.
Though the government department now pays that other half, Sofka is employed as an adjunct lecturer, not a tenure-track professor. He does not have a long-term work guarantee, and his employment is renewed on a year-by-year basis.
Sofka said he is upset that he may not be in his regular teaching position come spring 2002. He still will teach International Law, as planned, next semester.
"I feel that it is unconscionable," said Sofka, who received his Ph.D. from the University in 1995. "You don't treat people this way, especially not people who have demonstrated great competency and have very strong records at the University. It's just not the way to do business."
Because government classes have swelled in size, resulting in long waiting lists, members of the already understaffed department have expressed their need to hire more full-time professors to College Dean Melvyn P. Leffler.
"Suffice to say, we would like to have more regular, [tenure-track] faculty lines," said Robert Fatton, Jr., a government and foreign affairs professor who is on leave and the chairman of the department, in an e-mail.
Sofka may be blocked from getting a permanent hire because he is a University graduate. The University traditionally does not like to hire its former students because it wants to promote richness and diversity through taking professors from other schools.
"Many [departments] around the country have policies not to hire their own graduate students," Leffler said. "Such hiring often leads to incessant infighting among professors to have their own students hired rather than looking for the best people around the country."
Sofka's possible departure comes as a surprise to many students. He receives some of the highest marks in the government department on teacher evaluations. Last fall, Sofka averaged 4.808 out of 5 on student evaluations in his International Law course.
The overall government faculty average is 4.353, according to department statistics.
Some of Sofka's fourth-year government honors students have rallied around him, holding meetings with high-level University officials in the hopes of saving the teacher and mentor they "know, respect, and love," said fourth-year College student Steven Shepard, a government honors student.
The students are losing out on a great professor if Sofka departs, said another government honors student, fourth-year College student Katie Dirks.
"Taking him away is disrespectful to the student body," Dirks added. "It's unfortunate that he hasn't been given a permanent spot because he is such an amazing teacher."
Adding to the hiring equation is Sofka's emphasis on teaching. Though the department factors in how nationally visible a professor is in its hiring decisions, one's teaching abilities and expertise in subject areas underrepresented in the department are also considered, said Jeff Legro, the department's acting chairman.
Though he has been published, Sofka said he tends to write on historical issues of political science and not in the more "sexy" journals of his field.
"I consider excellent teaching and excellent research to be the responsibility of all faculty members," Leffler said. "We certainly want to hire people who are at the cutting-edge of their disciplines in terms of research and publications and who are also devoted, inspiring, challenging teachers. We should always be looking for people who can do both."
There is also "little commonality" among department faculty, which may play a role in Sofka's departure, O'Brien said. There are "far greater divisions" that are both philosophical and generational in nature.
"The University has the tradition of being very Byzantine in which faculty members tend to bargain for themselves alone," O'Brien added. "Once again, we have a valuable faculty member who has been published and done a fabulous job, and we're losing him because of competing agendas."
Sofka said he has taken a "live and let live" approach to departmental politics, which he said are common within the University.
"I have no interest in department politics, just in making the undergraduate program run smoothly," he said.
If Sofka decides to leave, the University will lose a great lecturer who brings majors into the department, a mentor, an adviser who goes beyond recruiting, and a tool for raising money, Shepard said.
Sofka "is rolled up under the steamroller of bureaucratic insouciance," Shepard added.
"I never knew this would be a 'big story' or that I was so popular," Sofka said. "It's touching that so many people would take an interest in my case."
"My basic desire in this whole enterprise is to basically sit in my office, advise my students, teach my classes and not bother anybody"
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