Another academic-poetry litigation brawl: “New England College has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the former director of its master’s-degree program in poetry stole faculty members and students from the New Hampshire institution and re-created the program at Drew University, in New Jersey”. New England College had offered the country’s only master’s program of its sort, but now six faculty members have departed to join the fledgling program at the New Jersey institution. (Chronicle of Higher Education; Concord Monitor).
3 Comments
It is interesting that New England College was paying the director of its Master’s degree program the princely sum of $33,000 a year, less than she could have been making as a public school teacher. And it probably has paid its lawyer more money to sue her than it paid her for an entire year. Perhaps if New England College were more generous with her, she would have never left.
Unless there is an enforceable non-compete agreement, I can’t see a cause of action here.
I’m pretty sure a college doesn’t own professors or students so I don’t see how a poetry program can really be stolen. More wasting of the courts time. Plus a lawsuit doesn’t really scream free expression like most poetry fans are use to.
Logan Lamech