The USM AAUP website contains the following very fine letter about the PUC; I apologize if this has already been posted elsewhere on this board.

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LETTER SUBMITTED TO THE HATTIESBURG AMERICAN

Permission to speak freely, sir?

Those who hope that USM president Shelby Thames’s suddenly assembled show council of faculty, staff, and students ("USM council meeting moves ahead," May 10, 2004) will somehow facilitate communication between the president and everyone else on campus should reflect on the fact that he has ignored the many duly elected and constituted faculty councils that already exist on campus. The Faculty Senate has actually had to go to the newspaper in an attempt to communicate with Dr. Thames. Members of the new council will have little freedom to say anything but what Dr. Thames apparently wants to hear. They will be appointed by the mostly untenured deans, who themselves are in danger of losing their jobs if they demonstrate any dissent, and at least two-thirds of the council will be students and staff, with even less power to say no.

A leader who cannot listen to reasonable dissent cannot succeed. "Without counsel, plans go awry, but in the multitude of counselors they are established" (Proverbs 15:22). Even in the military, that most undemocratic of institutions, a soldier may request permission to speak his mind without reprisal. How much more should one be able to speak in an American university, an institution that has always guaranteed its tenured members permission to speak freely so that those members can move forward in the pursuit of truth, which is the primary charge of the university? It is ironic that Mississippians in the armed forces have been sent to Iraq with the stated goal of establishing elective representation, when--here at home--Dr. Thames is being allowed to abolish it.

Jameela Lares
Associate Professor of English
The University of Southern Mississippi

quote:

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Originally posted by: present professor
" PUC is a reality at this point. We need to have some faith that those on the committee whom we know to be tough minded but fair will ask the right questions. It is very possible this whole thing could backfire on Shelby. Best advice I can give is for those of us who can go to go so we know exactly what gets said. Make sure you tell your rep what you want said in your behalf. We have to work with what we have -- the worst thing to do at this point is to get paralyized into inaction and dissension. In every conflict there are moved and countermoves -- we need to learn how to take a countermove and turn it back on our opponant."

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Good advice.

quote:

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Originally posted by: Part of the problem
"I think this is wrong. The countermove to PUC is not compliance ad participation, unless that compliance and participation is sure to be aggressive and confrontational. If Polk or Chambers or any of the vocal advocates were on the PUC I might agree with your view, but as constituted it seems like a birthday party for Thames, complete with party favors. Read the other thread about the meeting. "

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It would be a good countermove. But there are too many people who will agree to participate for many reasons. So the option is to have a committee that is completely putty in Shelby's hands or to have a committee where the possibility for confrontation and exposure might take place. You do several people on this committee a disservice -- there are people on that committee who have quietly been doing solid work for the past year. Just because you don't see them or hear them means they aren't there. And I'd hardly call David Johnson a walkover.

Shelby will have a committee -- he can get 18 people. So our strategy must be to give him a committee that at best will not let itself be use and might expose him; at most it will neutralize his efforts to use the committee as a way to illustrate how things might work if only people would cooperate with him.

We can dream all we want: I'd love it if no one would participate. But practically, we go with what we have -- it is a guerrilla war  made up of small battles and skirmishes.