Quiet rumors about our administration working on a major shake-up of Wesleyan’s departmental structure ought to start getting louder: in his most recent Roth on Wesleyan post, President Roth suggests he likes the idea of dissolving departments.

“Liberal Learning and the University of the Future,” President Roth calls the January 31st entry, and he keeps the tone safely theoretical. It’s Mark C. Taylor, not Roth himself, who suggests “moving from silos to networks, abolishing departments and tenure,” in his book, Crisis on Campus. But President Roth likes much of what he sees. He writes,

“[Taylor] is right on the money in attacking the powerful, long-term trends toward specialization in university culture, trends which have a decidedly negative impact on undergraduate education. At many schools this has led to a fragmentation of intellectual life, with powerful departments defending their own interests without regard to the welfare of the institution as a whole. Who is going to articulate a holistic vision for undergraduate education when only specialized success is awarded professional prestige?”

Roth’s answer? It might be the next word in his post: “I.”