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But the affair bothers other people, and this baffles Welter and Parker. As she remarks to Ephron: "What's ludicrous is that this happened in a community that prides itself on sexual immorality. They can't understand there might be moral adultery." Rush's explanation is that the faculty is so accustomed to having affairs with students that they "are not able to understand a nonexploitative relationship."
Feminist Professor Camille Paglia has another theory. "At Bennington, you can do it with dogs and no one cares," she says. "But there was a feeling that educational policy was being made in the boudoir." When in 1975 it comes time to confront some serious educational problems, like an overtenured faculty, Gail, at the trustees' urging, forms a futures committee, and Rush Welter is on it. She knows she has little other support. As she gamely tells the trustees. "I'm going to have to cash in my chips to do this." She is right. The report, which, among other things, recommended that twelve teaching positions be cut and that all students should major in two fields, totally alienates the faculty.
The trustees back Gail. Soon, though, they look into the grievances that have accumulated. Gail and Tom are forced out, and she, gallantly, tells the Bennington Banner: "This is not the culmination but the beginning of our careers."
What do you say, Darryl? Genevieve Bujold?
Your trusty scout,
Robert
P.S. So far the Parkers' new careers are not dramatic: he is an educational fund raiser in Chicago, and she is a freelance writer. She talked with a TIME correspondent friend of mine last week about Ephron's article, found it disturbing that "it makes Bennington College look like a place where no one tries to address any issues, where life is dedicated to gossip." But Parker has an article of her own in this month's Atlantic, which is also critical of the "incestuous viciousness" of academic life. She rails against the Bennington faculty for insisting on being included in the decision-making process, only to paralyze it with empty debate. You might find it instructive to read her piece alongside Ephron's. Two cuts of the same reality, etc.