TO THE EDITOR:
We, the undersigned, are members of the American Studies Graduate Student Association.
We write now in the spirit of our department’s commitment to study and teach the democratic structures and practices of our nation’s history and present, the cultural and historical significance of an American public university and the manifold meanings of what it is to identify as an American.
It is in this spirit that we wish to express our disappointment in the actions of the Board of Governors, since the wrongful dismissal of University-system President Tom Ross, and our disapproval of the President-elect, Margaret Spellings.
Former board Chairperson John Fennebresque, by circumventing the board’s search committee to push forward his candidate under a partisan agenda, violated the governing structures that are in place to ensure no board member runs a monopoly in the presidential search.
Members of the Board of Governors should be ashamed that they let Fennebresque break down the egalitarian structures of University governance to produce a president-elect who is unfit for the position.
Margaret Spellings — in her own words — is not an academic, a teacher or a researcher. She holds to her record board membership of the Apollo Education Group: the parent company of the much criticized for-profit school, University of Phoenix.
As Secretary of Education, she was the chief enforcer of the No Child Left Behind Act, legislation now almost totally removed from federal law because of its widespread and systemic failure to use accountability as a tool for reform.
The University system has had a long and turbulent relationship with conservative factions in the state who have tried their hand at controlling it.
