Harry Hirsch
Harry Hirsch, Professor of Politics and Comparative American Studies, received his B.A. from the University of Michigan and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University. His specialties are constitutional law and jurisprudence, gender and sexuality, and modern political theory. He has published several books and numerous articles on constitutional theory and practice, gay rights and politics, and the First Amendment. He teaches courses on constitutional law, gay and gender politics, and American political thought.
Hirsch was Dean of the College for the 2005-6 school year.
Contents |
[edit] Courses
[edit] Fall 2008
On Leave
[edit] Spring 2009
- POLT 206: Politics of Sexual Minority Communities
- POLT 233: American Political Thought
[edit] Tenure as Dean
Hirsch came to Oberlin in fall 2005 as the Dean of the College from Macalester College in Minnesota, where he was a professor of politics and was well regarded by faculty, students, and staff for gathering consensus on a myriad of academic and administrative issues. He held the position for a little over a year before abruptly resigning. As part of the standard agreement for hiring a dean or related senior position, he had automatically been granted tenure in his department of specialty, and so began teaching full time the following year.
While initially very well received by many faculty here at Oberlin, it seemed his star quickly tarnished with little progress made on many issues on which faculty had hoped for movement, including the creation of a pedagogy center, and a renewed emphasis on faculty governance.
Rumors over the exact nature of his resignation swirled for a while, compounded by Nancy Dye's decision to announce her retirement soon after word of Hirsch's resignation had hit. The most commonly held belief was that Hirsch either helped lead or did nothing to stop a vote of no confidence against Dye that was backed by several dozen professors, leading to Dye asking him to resign. No public statements on his resignation were made, however.
