President Knapp Appointed Chair of English Department Student Complaint Committee
President Knapp graciously hosted the faculty of the English Department at his F St home yesterday. Although he holds a part-time job as president of a major urban university, Steven Knapp is most famous as a scholar of 18th- and 19th-century English literature and literary theory. He holds his tenure in the English Department at GW.
Because the event was technically our monthly faculty meeting, I took the opportunity to give President Knapp his first departmental service appointment: he will chair our new Student Complaints Committee. President Knapp was gracious in accepting the charge … and then immediately delegated it to one of his staff.
What he didn’t realize, though, is that I’d actually thrown him a softball. As department chair, I am the one in charge of student complaints … and in my entire three years in office, a time at which we have as a department taught hundreds upon hundreds of students, I have been approached with exactly three complaints — and they resolved themselves after a little advice. Seriously.
Now, however, if any of our students have a complaint to lodge, they will find themselves filing in triplicate and walking them over to …. well President Knapp never did give me the name of the person who was in charge on his behalf.
I may well file a complaint.
