‘We are gutted’ — Hamline’s creative writing MFA is on the chopping block
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Kayla Knoll is a full-time nurse and a poet in the creative writing MFA program at Hamline University in St. Paul. Much of her poetry reflects on her experiences as a nurse, a career she began during the pandemic.
Knoll reads her poem “I Stopped Learning Their Names.”
“I see their faces peeked out from under starchy blankets. Eyes remain unopened, but no sleep comes. Lines trail from every entrance to their body. Medications hang from a metal pole, sterile in this sterile feeling room, I’ve stopped learning their names to protect myself,” she begins.
Knoll chose Hamline’s program a few years ago because she says it’s the only one in the state that allows her to continue working full-time as a nurse. The program duration is flexible.
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“It’s the only one that works for people who have full-time, 8-5 jobs, which is the reality for a lot of students,” Knoll says. Without it, it “takes away a lot of voices who are workers, who are part of day-to-day experiences that are more relatable to readers.”
On Feb. 28, Knoll, and other students in the program, received an “urgent message” from the creative writing program’s leadership — program director Richard Pelster-Wiebe and associate professors Angela Pelster-Wiebe and John Brandon. The email, which was provided to MPR News, began:
“Yesterday, it was announced to us that Hamline University Interim President Kathleen Murray and Interim Provost Andy Rundquist will be making the recommendation to the Hamline University Board of Trustees to sunset the MFA program effective immediately.”
The email also stated there would be cuts to the program’s coordinator position — currently held by Meghan Maloney-Vinz — and the entire budget of the Water~Stone Review, the program’s decades-old literary journal which publishes poetry, short stories, essays, book reviews and interviews.
“We are gutted,” the email continued.
Knoll, who is Water~Stone’s assistant editor of poetry, says it was a shock to her and other students. She sent an email to Rundquist protesting the cuts.
“He sent a blanketed template email back saying this program has been under review since 2021 and no official decision has been made,” Knoll says. “A bunch of the community that I knew had sent emails received that blanketed template back.”
Knoll then started a petition on March 12. She says students want to save the program and are requesting transparency from the university about the decision-making process.
“Within 24 hours, it was almost at 700 signatures, and within five days, it’s now up to 1,100,” Knoll says.
“Look, our students are so upset,” says Richard Pelster-Wiebe. The decision to make cuts and phase out the program, which currently has 42 students, came as a surprise to Pelster-Wiebe, too.
“This news coming in February was really quite a shock,” Pelster-Wiebe says. “On February 27, we were informed that the interim provost had put plans in motion to sunset the MFA, which is the oldest [creative writing] MFA in Minnesota.”
He says the university cited the program’s drop in enrollment. But Pelster-Wiebe says that most programs had a drop in enrollment during the pandemic, and he’s actually seen an increase in new students in the last two years. He also says the program has suffered from attrition, as professors retired over the past few years and were not replaced.
Hamline and Interim President Kathleen Murray and Interim Provost Andy Rundquist declined an interview with MPR News. Hamline did provide a statement:
“As part of the academic process, all course offerings receive periodic review to be sure they meet student needs and university objectives. This is currently the case with Hamline’s Creative Writing Program. There has been no decision made on sunsetting the program.”
Hamline has yet to respond to a request for comment on the cuts to the program coordinator position and the journal, which are effective July 1.
“Even though there is a process that is unfolding right now regarding the sunsetting of the program, if we end up prevailing and winning that process and saving the program, the program has already been incapacitated because of the elimination of the staff support,” Pelster-Wiebe says.
The program is worth saving, he says, because of its unique approach and the tight-knit community it has fostered. Not only is it the oldest creative writing MFA in Minnesota and flexible for students that work full-time, but it’s also a multi-genre creative writing MFA.
“Typically in a creative writing program, you go in there and you say you’re going to write the next Great American Novel. So you write the next Great American Novel — you stick with your fiction, you stick with your poetry, your creative nonfiction, whatever genre it is that you're interested in,” he says. “But here at Hamline, we require our students to write across genres and to experiment.”
Meghan Maloney-Vinz is the program coordinator — the position that is cut as of July 1 — and the executive editor of Water~Stone. Maloney-Vinz is an alum of the program, too.
“It’s really tough to see Water~Stone go. Over the 28 years, we’ve published probably close to 1,700 writers from all over the world,” she says. She points to the last issue, which featured the work of Ukrainian poet Sasha Oleksandra Lavrenchuk who had to flee to Munich.
Maloney-Vinz says literary journals are key for emerging writers to get their work published, and Water~Stone is one of the “old ones” and is known nationally.
“So that brings with it some notoriety for Hamline and a reputation that Hamline University is a place that supports this legacy of beginnings for folks and for writing in general,” Maloney-Vinz says. “It’ll be a hole in that landscape to see yet another one of these sequoias go down.”
Maloney-Vinz says the Water~Stone team is trying to finish the next issue before she departs, which will be a rush, as the journal is typically sent to printers in September.
Knoll says Hamline told current students they would be able to complete their degrees. She says she will, but morale is low.
“It feels like even if I’m able to finish out my degree, we won’t have a functioning program to finish out — there’s no one that's going to be there to coordinate the program and do all the things that lend support and actually structure,” Knoll says. “It’s a small consolation to be able to finish out my degree when there’s so much heart and passion and community within this program and surrounding this journal.”
Knoll, Maloney-Vinz and Pelster-Wiebe say they want decisions and cuts to be delayed until the new university president and provost start this summer.
