Retired professor S. Michael Halloran received a bachelor’s degree from Holy Cross College and came to RPI in 1967 as a graduate student and teaching assistant in communication and rhetoric. He was promoted to assistant professor when he completed his Ph.D. in 1973. He taught undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetoric, writing, and literature, as well as interdisciplinary courses. He is proud of the 28 doctoral dissertations he directed and the fact that, “Two of my former doctoral students now hold endowed chairs, two others have chaired departments, and two have served as editors of refereed journals.”
He retired in 2003 but still makes presentations at lectures in the Department of Language, Literature, and Communication, and is available to mentor graduate students and serve on doctoral committees. Halloran is still an active scholar; he has published two books and more than two dozen referred articles, and is currently working on another book. He regularly presents papers at academic conferences, including two keynote presentations last year.
Halloran also has an impressive service record at RPI. He served as chair of the Department of LL&C and as associate dean of Humanities and Social Sciences and was also active in faculty governance. He served a term as secretary of the Faculty Council—predecessor of the Faculty Senate—and served four years on the Faculty Committee on Promotion and Tenure. Since retiring he was elected to the position on the Faculty Senate designated for retired faculty and also serves as the recording secretary of the Rensselaer Retirees Forum.
One of the explanations given by the administration for restricting the vote is that others aren’t as fully vested in RPI, so I asked Halloran about his investment in RPI. He has served under nine presidents, seven provosts, and can recall six trustees that he has had direct dealings with. He added, “While I am sure that at least some of the administrators and trustees named above would characterize faculty members as having served ‘under’ them, I prefer to think that I served ‘with’ them ... I am an alumnus as well as an emeritus faculty member. I have spent my academic career at RPI and hope to remain an active scholar based at RPI for many more years. I participate regularly in colloquia in my department and value deeply the relationships I have formed with faculty and graduate students, including those who have joined RPI since I retired. I am deeply offended by the idea that my ‘investment’ in RPI is somehow weaker than that of active faculty members. For better or worse, my professional identity will remain tied to RPI for as long as I remain active as a scholar.”
When the trustees changed the definition of the faculty, thereby disenfranchising him, Halloran explained that he felt “disappointed and angry, but not particularly surprised. While my department has welcomed my continued participation in its activities, I have found that RPI is not much interested in having emeritus faculty remain active in the affairs of the Institute. I find this puzzling because many emeriti have professional connections and prestige that can be of practical value to graduate students and junior faculty, as well as experience and perspective that could be of use to administrators.”
“[Retirees should be involved in governance because] we are the collective memory of the Institute. We have a perspective on how the Institute has come to the present moment in its history, and that perspective is important to the making of decisions about where we are going in the future. And—contrary to the provost’s assertion—we have a major investment in the Institute. RPI is not to us a rung on the career ladder that leads upward to MIT or ... wherever, so it matters greatly to us that RPI should succeed over the long term.”
Editor’s Note: “The Disenfranchised—Who are they?” is a column granted to Linda Layne, Hale Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, to profile individuals in the RPI community who were directly affected by the 2006 Board of Trustees directive restricting the definition of faculty at Rensselaer.
