OUT YOURSELVES

Date: Apr 30, 2004

OUT YOURSELVES

Date: Apr 30, 2004

Mandy--if this is really you (and I think it is), you know who I am. I know that this is personal for you, and I respect your feelings. Just wanted to say that before anyone else jumped in. I think people have reacted before really understanding what the settlement was actually about. A lot of people here worked really hard to have your dad and Frank Glamser reinstated and wanted to accept nothing less (I know I did). But, it's not our lives and our livelihood on the line. I understand that, and my opinion of your dad and Frank is not diminished one bit. I think others here will come around to that, too, once reality has settled in.

Hang in there...tell your dad that we're proud of him!

Date: Apr 30, 2004

Amanda, your dad and Dr. Glamser are as brave as brave can be. Some of us aren't in a position right now to put our names out there. Some people are single parents with small children, who have to have insurance, etc.

But not me. I want to come back to work at USM, but if I can't, I can't.

My name is Linda Vance Nunes, B.A., M.A. in English. Former manager of the Office of Independent Study. Former adjunct instructor (asst. professor by a technicality) of English at University of Memphis. Former fizzled-out doctoral student at Vanderbilt. Listed in MLA as Linda Vance Lusk, author of two articles in a miniscule journal. Person who loves learning, freedom, truth, and is known to have a little attitude.

Date: Apr 30, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: former-staffer
"Amanda, your dad and Dr. Glamser are as brave as brave can be. Some of us aren't in a position right now to put our names out there. Some people are single parents with small children, who have to have insurance, etc. But not me. I want to come back to work at USM, but if I can't, I can't. My name is Linda Vance Nunes, B.A., M.A. in English. Former manager of the Office of Independent Study. Former adjunct instructor (asst. professor by a technicality) of English at University of Memphis. Former fizzled-out doctoral student at Vanderbilt. Listed in MLA as Linda Vance Lusk, author of two articles in a miniscule journal. Person who loves learning, freedom, truth, and is known to have a little attitude. "

Linda, I've loved reading your letters in the HA. Glad to know you're on the board!

Date: Apr 30, 2004

There are a number of us who were on the website supporting your father and Dr. Glamser before and after the announcement. You have the right to be indignant but many people have to continue the good fight in anonymity in order to bring about the ultimate success that your father must want. Your father paid the price for many but we cannot afford to have everyone silenced - please be patient with us. We love you, feel sympathy for you, and pray for you even without knowing you. Please don't be disheartened by a disillusioned few.

Date: Apr 30, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Salesperson
"There are a number of us who were on the website supporting your father and Dr. Glamser before and after the announcement. You have the right to be indignant but many people have to continue the good fight in anonymity in order to bring about the ultimate success that your father must want. Your father paid the price for many but we cannot afford to have everyone silenced - please be patient with us. We love you, feel sympathy for you, and pray for you even without knowing you. Please don't be disheartened by a disillusioned few."

And please don't stop reading . . .

Date: Apr 30, 2004

And some of us who are still posting anonymously are actually people who are "out" in other contexts, or will be more "out" soon.

I'm sure this has been hard as hell for you and your family, and you have all my support.

Date: Apr 30, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: foot soldier
"And some of us who are still posting anonymously are actually people who are "out" in other contexts, or will be more "out" soon. I'm sure this has been hard as hell for you and your family, and you have all my support."

And we pray you will not be OUT as in OUT the door.

Fire Shelby · Status: Offline

Amanda,

I agree that your father and Frank Glamser have suffered immensely the past eight weeks. I am a huge supporter of theirs, and I have spent many hours each day (some would say TOO many) to keep this website updated and to moderate this message board when I probably should have been spending time with my family or on my work. I also protest and speak out on campus as "the real me."

I can't imagine the anxiety your family has been through. Your family has been in my thoughts and prayers for the past eight weeks. I have been very concerned about Frank and Gary. I have come to deeply admire and appreciate them.

Having said that, I cannot reveal my identity as it pertains to the moderator of this message board and the creator of this website right now. I cannot make it "public." I can't explain to you the reasons here, but would love to talk to you via email.

I was blown away by your message. I am sorry that you feel that this message board is attempting to disparage your father. As far as I am concerned, that could not be further from the truth.

I haven't had time to check through all the threads and respond to all posts...I noticed that others here are doing a good job of defending your father and Frank.

Again, I am sorry that you feel we have let you down. I hope you will reconsider your decision not to visit this board again.

Date: Apr 30, 2004

Dear Ms. Sauer,

I've tried to offer a balanced treatment of the settlement, and its implications, on Liberty and Power:

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/4936.html

I don't blame Gary Stringer or Frank Glamser for taking the settlement. A while back I advised a colleague to accept a sweetened retirement deal in a different kind of situation in which gross abuses of power had been taking place over several years.

All the same, the struggle needs to be carried on so that professors who make legitimate criticisms of administrators not only cannot be fired, but cannot be isolated, marginalized, or pushed into retirement.

I've been using my real name all along. But then I'm not at USM, and Shelby Thames has no political influence in South Carolina.

All I can say is that I have openly criticized the Clemson administration. I've been sued for helping to expose a professor who lied on his vita (which is why I take Angie Dvorak's conduct personally); I also ended up being dropped from the suit, but no one can take even the most meritless lawsuit lightly. I was kicked off a major university committee a few years ago, by order of the President, for publishing an op-ed in the local paper calling for a special commission to study the university's administration and identify 100 administrative positions to be permanently cut. At Clemson, that made me unpopular with the upper administration; at some other institutions, I would have been trying to raise money to pay for my legal defense.

So speaking out against power-hungry administrators, especially when they are vicious as Shelby Thames appears to be, is daunting, and it is never going to be for everyone. But it's the only anyone will ever be able to stop them.

Frank Glamser and Gary Stringer have done what they could, and we are all indebted to them. Others, like Myron Henry and Anne Wallace, have stepped forward.

If enough faculty members and students step forward, what are Thames and his hatchetpeople going to do? Fire all the professors? Expel all the students? Their model of a university may include only themselves, but the rest of the world won't see it that way.

Robert Campbell

Date: Apr 30, 2004

Robert

I admire your courage and you are to be highly commmended with the Purple Heart of Academia.

But, you make one critical error.

This is Mississippi. The people Thames is using as pawns are in Mississippi.

It seems--with leadership from the IHL and a deafening silence now from Ole Miss and MSU and others--that the average Joe Blow in Mississippi is not averse to considering tenure as "outdated."

I am sorry but I think the future of USM, which I love deeply, is perhaps over for decades.

I wonder if tenure will be eliminated at State and Ole Miss. No. They will not have to struggle. The IHL will rein in Klumb and make tenure obsolete only at USM.

It has begun.

Date: Apr 30, 2004

Well, where are the faculty at Ole Miss and Mississippi State?

I have no connections there, but many contributors to this board must.

What makes them so sure that what some influential people have in mind for USM won't hit them, too?

Robert Campbell

Date: Apr 30, 2004

dear ms. sauer: i can understand your anger. my family has gone through similar attacks by glamser and associates. sorry, we're not shelbyites either. we've had to talk to our daughters about things being written about us. unfortunately, it now comes with the territory.

Fire Shelby · Status: Offline

quote:
Originally posted by: lddad
"dear ms. sauer: i can understand your anger. my family has gone through similar attacks by glamser and associates. sorry, we're not shelbyites either. we've had to talk to our daughters about things being written about us. unfortunately, it now comes with the territory."

ExCUSE ME??!

Date: Apr 30, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: lddad
"dear ms. sauer: i can understand your anger. my family has gone through similar attacks by glamser and associates. sorry, we're not shelbyites either. we've had to talk to our daughters about things being written about us. unfortunately, it now comes with the territory."

I think you are outing yourself here. Be careful, if that's not what you want to happen.

Date: May 1, 2004

Some of us can't out ourselves because we simply can't. But Frank knows who I am.

Date: May 2, 2004

Dear Amanda Stringer Sauer,

Since I am indeed “leaving soon,” I am seriously thinking of “outing” myself. The fact that I have not yet done so shows the level of fear engendered by a horrid administration that will not hesitate to strike “anyone, anywhere, anytime.”

Your father Gary Stringer and his colleague Frank Glamser are heroes and honorable men worthy of immense admiration. Very few among us would be willing, as they were, to put their careers and reputations on the line to do what they believed to be right (and it WAS right!). Both will be long remembered for their courage in quite rightly challenging the most corrupt of administrations.

Your father and Dr. Glamser, along with their families, have endured unimaginable anguish and are now entitled to see an end to this. Let us also not forget that your family has been attacked not once, but twice, by this horrid administration. Your mother, Dr. Mary Ann Stringer, was one of nine deans who were summarily dismissed when the despicable tyrant secretly reorganized USM’s nine colleges into five. When that happened, I made up my mind that I could not remain on the faculty at USM; the subsequent attack on your father convinced me to leave no matter what. Such a tyrant should never have been appointed president of a university, and the fact that he was chosen above eminently more qualified candidates and despite faculty opposition reflects very poorly upon the judgment of the members of IHL.

Some have expressed the opinion that, in agreeing to a settlement, the two professors have somehow betrayed their supporters. They have betrayed no one; anyone who believes otherwise ought instead to be hopeful that he or she will never have to face such a situation.

Thanks to your father and Dr. Glamser, the campaign to bring the accuser's despicable fascist regime to a swift end is stronger and more determined than ever. I have been deeply involved in the campaign to see your father reinstated, and will remain involved in the fight to oust the fascist regime, to whatever extent possible even after I leave USM.

Respectfully,

A tenured faculty member who is
leaving very soon