Tom Kealey, one of the lecturers quoted extensively in this article, is a fantastic teacher. I took a class with him toward the beginning of his time at Stanford, and I often find myself thinking about what I learned. Tom took us seriously, those shy and strange kids who were just waking up to our own interior lives. He read our fan fiction, our intriguing premise that went nowhere, our characters who were always bursting into tears portentously, and he helped us learn how to stop copying what we had read, and to begin to find a voice.
The university statement says “However, we firmly believe that the changes advance the program’s pedagogical mission and provide promising writers with the resources to complete their books and obtain appointments at other colleges and universities.” I think that’s completely ridiculous. It will definitely do the second thing; how could it do the first? Promising writers preparing for publication have a great deal on their plate. Why would we expect them to excel in pedagogy because they write well?