'Dear Stanford': Letter 36
A Collection of Letters in Support of Stanford's 23 Jones Lecturers
On August 21st, 23 Creative Writing lecturers were ‘future fired’ in a meeting with Deans, Directors, and Professors that oversee the program. Writing against the firing and in support of their teachers, students’ and alums’ letters to the administration alike have received auto-replies and brief responses to their concerns. This Substack is a space for these letters. This one is by Dr. Christina Dimopoulos-Verma, ‘14.
Dear Stanford,
Even though I knew I wanted to become a physician, I chose to major in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. My whole life, I had always loved reading and writing and felt that undergraduate would be the ideal—and, in my mind, only—time to pursue this interest before starting medical school.
I came to Stanford in fall 2011 as a transfer; my reason for transferring was to be at a university that emphasized the humanities. My prior institution was a powerhouse in biology, but I left because it didn’t have a robust English department or a large creative writing presence.
I remember my second quarter at Stanford, still feeling out of place, taking Fiction Writing with Tom Kealey. The warm, personal atmosphere of our small cohort was the polar opposite of the large courses I was required to take for the English major and as a pre-medical student, where I felt like a nameless face. For the first time since arriving to Stanford, I felt like a teacher was invested in my success.
That year, Dr. Abraham Verghese taught a course in the spring called Body as Text. It was application based, and I desperately wanted to get in. Mr. Kealey gave me feedback on the story that I submitted as part of my application, and thanks to his help, I was accepted to the class. I want to point out that this story was completely separate from what I had been writing for the fiction writing class, and therefore something to which he dedicated extra time.
In fall 2012, I took Reading and Writing Poetry with Brittany Perham, a course which changed the trajectory of my writing. Prior to that point, I thought I was going to concentrate in fiction writing. Her careful teaching of fixed forms and line breaks made me realize that I—who nitpicked word choice and thrived on feeling—was designed to write poetry. I graduated ten years ago, but the names of these Jones Lecturers still remain with me.
Since graduating from Stanford, I have become a physician and—to the surprise of my younger self—I continue to write. Writing has been an invaluable way for me to maintain my humanity as a doctor in a broken healthcare system.
During my internal medicine residency, my writing was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, two of the premiere medical journals in the nation. As a Chief Resident, I created a narrative medicine curriculum to help residents process their experiences and understand the perspectives of marginalized patients. These sessions were well-attended by people with a range of creative writing experience, from fellow English majors like me to those who had never written before.
I list these accomplishments not to boast, but to demonstrate the tangible ways in which the creative writing courses taught by the Jones Lecturers provided me with the tools to pursue this path within medicine. Without exaggeration, I would not have had the training to do so otherwise.
For all the students out there who want to weave creative writing into the fabric of their lives, I implore you reverse your decision and have the Jones Lecturers stay. With such a high demand for creative writing classes and a 36.5-billion-dollar endowment, it only seems rational to keep them, start paying them a living wage, and hire additional lecturers.
Sincerely,
Christina Dimopoulos-Verma, MD
Stanford University Class of 2014