Cornell College Turns Its Back on the Liberal Arts. This One Is Personal.

Armstrong Hall, where Curmie used to work.
(Theatre has now been moved to a new, adjoining, building.)

Over the years, Curmie has written a handful of posts about colleges that have abandoned their liberal arts orientations while claiming not to have done so.  There was Goucher College back in 2018, St. Mary’s University in 2022, and Marymount University in 2023, plus a couple of passing comments elsewhere.  He even wrote that the St. Mary’s case was “personal” because of a friend who used to work there and a link to the same British conservatory as Curmie’s university has.

But this one is really personal.  This time, it’s Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where Curmie himself taught for seven years, that has sought the easy but no doubt ineffectual fix even if it means betraying what Curmie had always believed was a genuine passion for the liberal arts model of higher education.  They’re slashing the entire Religion department (this in a school still nominally associated with the United Methodist Church), Classics, foreign languages (only a Spanish minor will remain), and music.  A total of eight positions in the Humanities are being cut.  Curmie learned about this act of hubristic incompetence from a Facebook post from Dr. David Weddle, Professor emeritus of Religion, who was one of the most universally respected professors Curmie has ever known. 

It’s clear, as is virtually always the case, that there was little if any input from faculty, just the whimsicality of an administration and the Trustees.  Dr. Truman Jordan, Professor emeritus of Chemistry, was a major player in faculty governance back in the days that actually meant something, and still lives in Mount Vernon.  He wrote on his FB page, “The Cornell press release has a phrase in it: ‘ . . . after consultation with the Faculty Council . . .’ This is rather disingenuous because as near as I have been able to determine, the administration paid no attention to anything the Faculty Council suggested.”  The chances that Dr. Jordan is accurately describing the situation: approaching ontological certitude.  Curmie can say this because he knows how college administrations operate… and he knows (OK, knew) Truman Jordan.

None of this surprises Curmie, who has seen the notion of shared governance dwindle from a reality to a slogan to a myth at colleges and universities across the country (certainly including the one from which he retired) over the past couple of decades.  What does catch Curmie’s attention is this: that having “60 years of [his] life invested in Cornell College as a liberal arts institution,” Jordan could write, “If the college continues on its current path, I would never, ever, consider coming to Cornell to teach. It saddens me greatly to have to say that.”  It saddens Curmie, too.

The comments from former students on both Weddle’s and Jordan’s pages (and on Curmie’s personal page) suggest that alumni, whether or not they majored in one of the disciplines about to be slashed, are pretty upset with both the decision and the process. 

The first show Curmie worked on at Cornell was as the director/coordinator of the New Student Variety Show (it’s been a while; that may not have been the official title).  The choral version of Mr. Mister’s “Kyrie” just blew me away.  Wow, I thought, I’m going to enjoy working with the faculty member who arranged and directed that… except it was an upper-class student, not a faculty member.  That same Music major played a featured role in The Rivals, the first theatre production I directed there, too.  Here’s (part of) his comment on Curmie’s FB page: “The smoking, hulking, disfigured remains after this botched academic Eugenics experiment bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Liberal Arts which first drew me to the Hilltop 42 years ago.” 

Yeah, what he said.

Curmie should note that Cornell is precisely the kind of college that is most likely to struggle financially in this politico-economic environment: rather expensive (a sticker price of about $50K per year, before financial aid), selective but not elite, rural, small enough that you might (ever so hypothetically) be taking courses in stage carpentry and lighting from a theatre historian/director.  So the desire to streamline, to cut programs that don’t attract a lot of students, is understandable.  But you simply cannot call yourself a liberal arts college without those disciplines.  Sure, you might be able to merge some Religion courses into the Philosophy Department or make similar arrangements with some other programs, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

What is listed above as a potential disadvantage—Cornell’s small size (about 1100 students) was also, of course, an advantage: everybody did everything, saw everything.  Students and faculty alike came to plays, concerts, athletic events and whatever else was happening.  You actually knew people on the football team and the newspaper staff, in the choir, and so on.  And that contributed to a lot of new horizons opening up for students, regardless of their field of study.

Curmie, of course, changed majors in college, and is convinced that one of the things that makes undergraduate education in the US superior (in general) to that elsewhere is precisely that capability.  In Curmie’s time there, Cornell got a half dozen or so new Theatre majors every year, and we’d graduate about the same number four years later; sometimes one or two were even the same people.  That’s what happens when students are encouraged to engage with the liberal arts: political scientists become “theatre kids,” and vice versa.  That’s a good thing.

Of course, there were far too few Theatre majors to do anything approaching full-scale productions without a lot of other folks contributing to the process.  So our “theatre kids” weren’t necessarily majors, and although some went on to careers in theatre, most ended up elsewhere: one is an oncologist, another a radio producer, another an HR manager, and so on.  That’s OK, too.  What better training for that HR position than casting a show or handling all the minor glitches in the process?

Curmie confesses that not all his memories of Cornell are happy, but he did get to teach some good courses, direct and/or design (or technical direct, or advise, or…) some good shows, and work with great colleagues and students, both inside and outside the department.  He has about 70 FB friends from his time there; considering that he left Cornell over a decade before FB even existed, that’s a fair number of folks sharing a connection with someone they haven’t seen in person in many years.

Cornell was, back in the day, a very good place to get an education.  There wasn’t a weak department on campus; Music, foreign languages, and Religion were, of course, among the strongest programs in a pretty distinguished field.  Cornell’s novel “Block Plan” (students take one course at a time in an academic year comprised of nine three-and-a-half week “blocks”) doesn’t work terribly well for all courses (Curmie could never figure out how to teach Directing on the Block Plan, for example), but you know what works particularly well on that schedule?  Foreign language instruction.  Ironic, huh?

The Cornell administration will no doubt claim that, despite appearances, they’re upholding liberal arts values.  They aren’t.  Whether they’re consciously lying or just too stupid to know any better is open to interpretation.

Four Stories about Libraries

Curmie confesses that he didn’t have libraries and librarians figuring particularly prominently on his Apocalyptic Bingo card.  He should have known better, but to be honest he thought that even the blustering buffoon occupying the White House would show a little restraint.  Of course, 47 is so far round the bend into incoherence that he makes Joe Biden look like Socrates, Cicero, Abraham Lincoln, Patrick Pearse, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr. rolled into one.  Curmie may get around to writing about the folks actually calling the shots, but that will come at a later date, if indeed at all.

There are four very different stories involving libraries on Curmie’s mind at the moment.  They all involve some combination of censorship, incompetence, and a particularly noxious blend of racism, sexism, and xenophobia.  Curmie hastens to note that actual librarians are never the bad guys in these scenaria.  At worst, those folks might be too unwilling to risk their livelihoods by refusing to accommodate absurd demands from “superiors.”  At best, they almost literally man the barricades against authoritarian idiots.

Library Story #1: Back in late March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who turns out to be even less qualified than Curmie believed when his confirmation was still pending, ordered the Naval Academy’s library to eliminate any books that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion viewpoints.  Some 900 books were “reviewed,” and 400 were indeed removed.

This silliness (or it would be silliness if the effects weren’t so real) is even worse than the crap we’ve seen in schools in Florida, Utah, Kansas, and elsewhere.  At least there, the censorship was at the public school level where there is at least the whiff of validity to the plaintive cries of “think of the children.”  The examples linked above, of course, are just about book bans; there are plenty of other variations on the general theme of what can’t be said in a classroom (a student’s preferred name, for example) or, God forbid, shown on a stage (too many examples to mention).

But there are no little kids at the Naval Academy.  Its library should reflect its status as a respected institution of higher learning.  Every major book on whatever topic, from whatever culture or era, should be there.  Indeed, as the saying goes, “a truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.”  Having a book on a library shelf is not an endorsement of its ideas.  Indeed, it’s vital that we understand the arguments of those with whom we disagree: otherwise, it’s impossible to effectively critique that reasoning.

And that means there should be a copy of The Prince, and Leviathan, and Das Kapital, and (wait for it…) Mein Kampf on those shelves.  And it sure as hell means that there ought to be at least some representation of more recent works by the likes of Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X. Kendi, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

None of this is to suggest that these books should necessarily be required reading, or that a decision not to buy a particular volume is inherently problematic.  Removing already purchased books for no reason other than the capricious political predilections of a government official, however, is a little too far down the road to the scenario described in a not-so-coincidentally frequently banned book, Fahrenheit 451, for Curmie’s taste.  Book-burners, literal or metaphoric, are never, and Curmie does mean never, the good guys.

Library Story #2: Speaking of book-burners… in April, a man checked out a total of 100 books over two trips to the public library in Beachwood, Ohio.  (That’s a little over a half hour away from the library where Curmie’s sister-in-law worked for over 40 years.)  The books were about black and Jewish history and LGBTQ+ education.  He then apparently burned them all in what he called a “cleansing,” posting a video to the Gab.com social media site, which is described by the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism as “an online hub for extremist and conspiratorial content” frequented by “conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, members of militias and influential figures among the alt right.”

That’s disturbing enough, but it appears that the library is powerless to do much until the books are overdue, and even then the punishment may be simply to pay the cost of the books, which is listed at approximately $1700.  That figure seems quite low to Curmie.  Might it be the original cost, or perhaps a “used copy” cost?  It’s difficult to imagine that new replacement copies would cost less than $17 apiece. 

Moreover, whereas the guy had to have a name and address associated with his library card (the library seems to think they can send him a bill), he is “unidentified” according to news reports, and there seems to be little interest on the part of the police to make this a criminal case.  It might be turned over to the city prosecutor for a civil case.

There is some good news coming out of this, though.  There’s a good deal of indignation on the part of the locals.  More importantly, there’s some action.  The Interfaith Group Against Hate describes itself as “a coalition led by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian congregations in solidarity with community partners united by the belief that we must confront white supremacy and create a society where people of all races and religions thrive together.” 

They’ve promised to collect and donate “1000 new books lifting up Black, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ voices.”  As of this writing, they’re up to 100 and counting.  Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk from Congregation Mishkan Or summed up the group’s response: “Whoever perpetuated the idea that you can burn us out of Cleveland, deport us out of Cleveland and deny our ideas and oppress us and frighten us to the corner… they picked the wrong community!”

And that, Gentle Reader, is how you do that.

Library Story #3: For a primer on how not to do that, we turn to Columbia University.  Columbia has been apparently rudderless for some time, somehow managing to suppress protected speech while simultaneously failing to take action against students (and others) who actually were breaking the law in pro-Palestinian protests dating all the way back to the Hamas attack in October of ’23.

The university leadership, and Curmie uses that term rather loosely, has spent most of this calendar year academic year groveling and capitulating to Trumpian bellicosity.  It has done them precisely zero good.  Worse, they’ve picked up on the recklessness and lack of concern for things like due process that have become the signature characteristic of the 47 regime.

Earlier this month, students at Columbia and its affiliate Barnard College occupied a reading room at the Butler Library as a response to Israel’s acceleration of attacks on Gaza.  This was, apparently, a violation of the university’s “time, place, and manner” restrictions.  Curmie has no opinion on whether those regulations are reasonable; such a consideration is irrelevant to the point to be made here.

Anyway, there were dozens of arrests.  Curmie isn’t going to comment on them, either.  Rather, he’s going to concentrate on the university’s actions, which included suspending a host of students, including at least four student journalists who were merely covering the protest and at least two who were simply studying in a different part of the library.  And that’s not just the affected students who are saying that; Columbia and Barnard de facto admitted as much by lifting those suspensions, all the while threatening the possibility of future sanctions.

Let’s get a couple of things established up front.  1). Criticism of a foreign government is protected speech, and criticism of Israel is not inherently anti-Semitic.  2).  Chanting “from the river to the sea” and similar slogans is not inherently illegal (irrespective of the claims of Trump and Rubio), but doing so in that place at that time (especially during finals!) may well be.  3).  Actual threats, violence, and vandalism are indeed subject to both criminal prosecution and sanctions, such as suspension, imposed by the university; actions have consequences.

The suspensions were effective immediately, meal cards were voided, and students were given 48 hours to vacate campus housing.  Is this an appropriate punishment for students willfully participating in a protest they knew to be a violation of the university’s code of conduct?  Sure.  But.  (Insert tired joke about a “big but” here.)  That’s a reasonable response after due process.  This wasn’t quite as bad as some of ICE’s kidnappings, but the “guilty until proven innocent” (“…and even then we won’t necessarily concede”) attitude is pretty similar.

Most if not all of the readers of this blog have undergone a finals week at a college or university.  Not the least stressful moments in your life, Curmie suspects.  So add to that not merely the threat of suspension, but a suspension per se and expulsion from your dorm room.  How the hell is any student supposed to be able to perform at their best under those circumstances? 

Apparently, the administration promised even those who really did participate in the protest they’d get due process should any disciplinary proceedings be undertaken.  They lied.  (Of course.)  And for at least several of those suspended, the “crime” in question turns out to be… not being able to leave the library when a bunch of people you don’t know block the exit.  Oh, and being brown-skinned and having a name like Samra Roosa, whose tale is told in the story in The Intercept, linked above.  Mustn’t forget that part. 

By the way, if you’re smart enough to get into Columbia or Barnard, you’re unlikely to be an intellectual pushover.  Here’s Ms. Roosa’s statement:

This accusation has caused me significant emotional distress and disrupted my ability to complete my final assignments. As a Muslim woman, I feel that Barnard has repeatedly failed to create a safe and supportive environment for students like myself. It is unacceptable for the College to claim inclusivity while subjecting students of color to racial profiling and false accusations.

This description, unlike those of too many students (and others) who seek victimhood as a substitute for accomplishment, rings true. 

As might be expected, the Trump administration’s task force on antisemitism (there is, of course, no such program to address Islamophobia) praised Columbia president Claire Shipman, despite (because of?) the obvious sloppiness and lack of anything approaching due process.  But, of course, the fact that the majority of the students suspended by Columbia/Barnard probably deserved it doesn’t change the fact that the administration acted too hastily and with little or no concern for the guilt or innocence of the individual students. 

Curmie has to agree with the assessment of Joseph Howley of Columbia’s Classics faculty: “Hasty punishments and violations of due process are exactly what we would expect when we allow our disciplinary and public safety policies to be dictated by political forces that value repression more than our community’s well-being.”

Library Story #4:  A little over a fortnight ago, the White House, to quote the CNN article, “notified Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden that she was removed from her position.”  There was no immediate explanation, but Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt (Bullshit Barbie) later responded to a reporter’s question by asserting that “there were quite concerning things she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI, and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.”

Blessed Athena, tell Curmie where to begin!  With the very questionable assertion that the Executive Branch has any damned business making any decisions whatsoever about the Library of Congress without legislative approval?  With the fact that every book published in the country is housed in the Library (provided only that a copy is sent there), so the content is irrelevant?  With the lack of specificity with respect to the “DEI” allegations, which likely wouldn’t stand up to even casual scrutiny?  With the fact that the Library of Congress is a research library, not a lending library, and you have to be over 16 to even get through the door?  This administration can’t even be bothered to make their lies plausible.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries argues the firing is, “a disgrace and the latest in his [Trump’s] ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn back the clock.”  That seems a little foam-flecked for Curmie’s taste, but he does strongly suspect that the real reason for Hayden’s dismissal (that’s a photo of her at the top of the page) had a lot to do with her surplus of melanin and X-chromosomes. 

Well, on second thought, not necessarily.  Perhaps she was terminated, as was Shira Perlmutter a couple of days later from her position as the Registrar of Copyrights: because they were impediments to what Congressman Joe Morelle describes as “a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis. It is surely no coincidence [Trump] acted less than a day after [Perlmutter] refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

So maybe Trump was acting as a grifter rather than a bigot, which, of course, would make everything all better, right?  Curmie will let you decide, Gentle Reader.

But here, too, there’s some good news.  After appointing his personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, who, needless to say, has literally no relevant experience for the job, as the new Librarian if Congress, 47 then appointed a couple more DOJ minions, Paul Perkins and Brian Nieves.  Perkins was to take over for Perlmutter, Nieves was to be Blanche’s deputy.  But when they showed up to work, they “were not allowed into offices.” Curmie can’t find a follow-up, or even determine if Perkins and Nieves were shown the door by staffers—you know, actual librarians—or by Capitol Police.

This is likely a blip in the seemingly inexorable and not-so-gradual take-over by Demented Don, (F)Elon, and their cabal of billionaire cronies and sycophantic underlings of literally every vestige of independent thought, Constitutional protections, or a meritocracy.  There is not a Republican in Congress with the patriotism, courage, or common decency to stand in Trump’s way when it really matters.  When the closest thing to a principled conservative in DC is Amy Coney Barrett, the future does not look bright. 

The damage that has already been done will take decades to fix, even if the process can start soon after the 2026 elections.  But the American Dream is not dead yet, and for at least one shining moment, the anti-intellectuals, authoritarians, and plutocrats were held at bay.  It’s not a lot, but it’s something.

Again with the Dress Codes and the Idiots in Charge.

It may be a little late in the year to start collecting nominations for the Curmie Award, which we missed altogether last year, but since education has been and will always be a central topic of Curmie’s blog, I’m going to talk about this story whether there’s an award nomination down the line or not.

Summer Bond in the offending garment.

It is, alas, a familiar story of high school dress codes and administrators who get their jollies by forcing students—well, some students—to conform to arcane, archaic, and profoundly sexist regulations. A young woman named Summer Bond (she’s identified only as “Summer” in all the news stories, but her lawyer uses her full name in a press release, so Curmie will do so, as well) was suspended and, apparently, not allowed to participate in her graduation ceremony from Hickory Ridge High School in Harrisburg, NC, presumably for wearing the shirt you see in the picture on the left. Yes, really. Or perhaps for “insubordination” for not prostrating herself before Petty Tyrant Executive Moron Principal Michelle Cline, bellowing mea culpas at the top of her lungs. Whatever. Fact is, it’s stupid.

Let’s get some stuff out of the way in a hurry. First, the dress code is (of course) an exercise in sexism. Girls mustn’t distract boys by, you know, looking attractive or fashionable. Obviously, there are legitimate functions of a dress code: no school wants gang signs or explicit bigotry on clothing, and it’s true that see-through tops or similar manifestations are at best unprofessional and at worst disruptive. OK, fine. But Curmie went to high school with some very beautiful young women who routinely (it being the ‘70s) wore skirts that wouldn’t come close to passing Hickory Ridge’s current dress code, and still managed to keep his mind on his courses. The “no cleavage” rule might work at a high school in North Carolina, but it wouldn’t last a day at virtually any university in the country. Curiously, students across the gender spectrum manage to concentrate.

We have further evidence of the gender-based nature of the school’s dress code in this reporting from WCNC in Charlotte: “earlier this year, 45 girls were brought into the principal’s office just because they were wearing leggings without shirts that were long enough.” (For the record, on any given day, about half the women in Curmie’s department would be similarly dressed.) Curiously, there are no reports from Hickory Ridge of boys violating the dress code. Go figure.

OK, Curmie gets it. The fact that high school dress codes are designed to blame girls for boys’ behavior is old news. Moving on. Other things to note up front:

• The fact that Summer is an excellent student is irrelevant. She could be barely passing, and the injustice would be just as manifest.
• She will, of course, graduate, although she may not walk. Even Michelle Cline isn’t stupid enough to risk the kind of damages that lawsuit would inevitably precipitate.
• She was never in danger of losing (note correct spelling, please, multiple sources) her scholarship to “a major university.” Any university that would give any credence to the petulant grandstanding of a two-bit high school principal instead of Ms. Bond’s grades, board scores, and recommendations is unworthy of attendance.
• There seems to be some history between Summer, her mom, and Principal Cline. This would appear to be at the center of the controversy.

Assuming the news reports are correct, here’s what happened: Principal Cline approached Summer at lunch (note that apparently no one had complained all morning), demanding that she put a jacket on over her top. Summer protested that there was nothing wrong with what she was wearing, but a friend loaned her a jacket, which she put on. We’re done, right? No, apparently that wasn’t enough, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.  One source suggests that (according to Cline) Summer's lower back still wasn’t covered, making that top the strangest shaped garment in history, but whatever…

Anyway, Cline then demanded that Summer change clothes altogether, but—because of that chronic tension mentioned earlier—there was apparently an arrangement (or merely a maternal insistence?) that Summer could not be punished in any way without her mom being notified first. So, with the school’s inability to contact the mom, we’re done, right? Nope. Cline throws everyone else out of a school assembly, calls in an armed School Resource Officer, and threatens Summer with arrest (!) for… uh… well, something. The mom called the school back just in time, but Summer was still suspended for ten days and threatened with expulsion.

OK. Analysis time. Notice that the local story from WCNC says that the problem is that Summer’s shirt “rests just off the tops of her shoulders and exposes her collarbone.” The HuffPost article specifically states that Summer was “suspended for wearing a shirt that showed her collarbones.” Curiously (not really) the school’s vaunted dress code, which school officials would have us believe descended from Mount Sinai to a trumpet fanfare, has nary a word about collarbones. Imagine Curmie’s surprise. The closest thing to an actual violation on Ms. Bond’s part is in fact a pure judgment call: the dress code demands that “all shirts should adequately cover the upper body including the shoulders…” Summer’s shoulders were covered, but one might reasonably quibble over the definition of “adequately.” As a side note, the WCNC’s Tanya Mindes wore a shoulder-revealing top as she reported from the scene. One suspects that viewers were somehow able to listen to what she was saying. (Curmie has wondered repeatedly over the years about what is so inappropriate about shoulders: here, here, and here, for example.)

It’s also worth noting that a suspension of more than two days for a dress code violation is allowed only for the sixth offense, but that the same student handbook gives carte blanche to school administrators to do pretty much whatever they want for some pretty ill-defined offenses. It’s another “Fuck You, We’re the Administration” clause. The order of the violations which can lead to suspension is telling. Here are the most egregious violations:

• 1. Being a persistent discipline problem.
• 2. Failure to report to the Control Room.
• 4. Disrespect to an Administrator.

More minor offenses—you know, stuff like actual crimes—are also included. Stealing is #11, vandalism is #12, bringing a weapon to school is #15, fighting is #16, drugs and alcohol #17. But the really important stuff to the school is at the top, and Curmie suspects that anything short of abject obeisance is going to be regarded by the likes of Michelle Cline as disrespect. It isn’t. Disrespect is what Curmie feels and expresses towards you, Ms. Cline, you heinous, bullying, buffoon.

One More Update: Special “Oddyshoe” Edition

When I was an undergrad, I was the producer for an Intramural Play Competition, in which dorms and frats (and maybe a sorority… I don’t remember) competed in theatrical presentation. One entrant was a fraternity that collectively wrote their own piece, called The Oddyshoe, a comic take-off on The Odyssey in which our intrepid heroes go on a quest to figure out why there are shoes and boots raining from the heavens.

Throughout the play, there were references to a place called Vana (or perhaps Vahna). And, as they approach this place at which they hope to achieve enlightenment, one of the band says “this is near Vana.” (Get it? Enlightenment? Nirvana?) It’s hardly the cleverest joke in history, but it’s not unfunny, and it was probably hilarious when first uttered at the frat house, probably at 2:00 a.m. with chemical enhancements. Trouble is, the writers set up all the scaffolding about going to Vana and then… they forgot to include the joke itself.

Why I am reminded of this anecdote some 35+ years after the fact is that I just sort of did the same thing. In this morning’s update and sequel post, I managed to leave out the section on the one story I most wanted to talk about: the tale of Jammie Price and Appalachian State University. (At least I get to spend a little more time and space on it this way.)

It turns out that there was new information made available literally the day after I wrote my piece, which was entitled “Jammie Price and the Offensiveness of [the] Porn [Industry]” and was dated April 29, 2012. It concerned a sociology professor at Appalachian State University who was suspended (they called it something else), apparently for showing an explicit anti-porn documentary in her class.

The next day, Dr. Price posted the text of her letter of reprimand from the university to a Facebook page entitled “Academic Freedom and Due Process at Appstate.” It’s quite a read.

Remember, this is a faculty member who has tenure, has been on the job for several years, and who was promoted by the university. This is not the time to question teaching methods unless they are completely beyond the pale. Even if the worst possible spin were to be put on the allegations, and even if they were all true, this isn’t enough to suspend a tenured full professor. Not to grant tenure under these circumstances would be reasonable… that’s not to say whether it would be a good or bad decision, merely that consideration of pedagogical approaches would be relevant. In Dr. Price’s case, the university has already place its imprimatur on her teaching strategies.

In any case, Dr. Price was asked—to use the euphemistic term—to submit to a “professional development plan” that would be insulting to a first-year Assistant Professor: there are more “peer reviews” required of this senior faculty member in a two-year period than I have ever had of me in the 30+ years I’ve been in the classroom (yes, combined), including when I was a teaching assistant and when I was just starting out as a junior faculty member.

Also of particular note is point B:

Inclusion of best practices for teaching lower division courses, which should include at a minimum:

1. Attendance policy that requires attendance and specifies the method to take attendance during class.

2. Multiple assignments that provide students some form of graded feedback prior to the midterm period.

3. Individual class objectives which allow for framing conversations that deal with sensitive topics.

OK, what the hell does an attendance policy have to do with the allegations? “Graded feedback prior to the midterm period” is generally a good idea, especially in a lower-division course, but telling a full professor how to structure her course is unspeakably arrogant. I should also note that my Director (the equivalent of a department chair) will have had ample opportunity to review my syllabi over a number of years and to make comments or suggestions. I don’t imagine that App State is radically different in that regard. In other words, if there’s a problem in course structure, it should have been addressed long ago. And don’t get me started on the pseudo-educational jargon factory that produces such claptrap as “individual class objectives.”

One thing I’ve learned in 30+ years in the education business: if an administrator says “this requirement is not a ban on use of sensitive materials,” it means “this is a ban on use of sensitive materials.” As I said last time, I remain to be convinced that there is anything inherently wrong with allowing students to be shocked, appalled and horrified. Sometimes that’s the way the world is. Would I have done what Dr. Price did? No. Does that mean that what she did is censurable? No.

Anyway, I’m particularly pleased by the misplaced modifier in the closing paragraph: “Once developed collaboratively, you will be expected to comply with the conditions of the professional development plan.” Nothing says “we believe in education” quite as well as a sentence any high school kid should know is ungrammatical.

That same day, April 30, the Winston-Salem Journal published an article by Monte Mitchell about the fracas. In it, there’s a reference to a March 16 letter to Dr. Price. Let’s take the charges enumerated in the March 16 letter, as described by Mitchell, one by one. For the sake of argument, let’s say that everything alleged against Professor Price is true.

So… she “called ASU a racist, predominantly white institution.” “Racist” is in the eye of the beholder; “predominantly white” is a statement of fact. She “said student-athletes get special privileges.” Well, duh. She “spent most of a class talking about a student-led protest about sexual assault allegations against two football players.” As well she should, in a sociology class. She “showed a documentary on pornography without introducing it or telling members of the class it contained images that could be objectionable to some of them.” Yeah. And? I don’t see a there, there, completely apart from Price’s denial that she called the school racist or said football players get special privileges.

Appalachian State history professor Shelia Phipps puts it well: “I started to list all of the things about history that I teach that are disturbing. History is about human behavior and a lot of it has to do with bad things humans do to each other. I don't warn students about difficult topics, which is one of the things the faculty member was accused of.” I concur. Events are sometimes shocking. Maybe post-adolescents ought to know that.

I did suggest last month that there’s likely more here than meets the eye. Price herself blames the trouble on the “poker club” that she says really runs things at ASU. Conversely, Mike Adams, a self-styled “not politically correct” professor of criminology at UNC-Wilmington suggests that:

Price arguably should have been suspended by UNCW back in March of 2003 when she cancelled all of her classes for an entire week in order to protest the Iraq War. Her unprofessionalism was compounded when she offered extra credit – but only to those who would join her in protesting the war. Predictably, a student complained and Price was reprimanded.

Adams provides further details of Price’s professional life which, if true, are problematic. That said, all that stuff is ancient history. The statute of limitations on those crimes officially expired with the granting of tenure.

In any case, Price emerged from her meeting with administration officials with this to say:

The university finds that I create a hostile teaching environment in my classroom and that, subsequently, I need to go through lessons and [“on”?] how to teach better. I will be provided a teaching mentor and I will be watched closely from here on out—basically put on teaching probation. I have not accepted these terms.

Good for her. If nothing else, this case appears to be a due process nightmare. And remember how I said I thought it interesting that FIRE wasn’t more involved? They’re baaaaaack. Here’s a lengthy and lawyerly take-down of the university’s position. It was met with a predictably non-responsive response: yet another “we can’t talk about private personnel matters” dodge which, though probably true, doesn’t help anyone’s cause or allay anyone’s fears.

Just yesterday, the Appalachian State Faculty Senate unanimously passed two resolutions: making it clear that “administrative leave” differs from suspension only in terminology, and that due process really ought to happen, even in Boone, NC. Plus, the case has gone from barely on FIRE’s radar to top billing on their “Top Cases” page.

I wrote a few weeks ago that:

Dr. Price’s actions may have reached to the level of inappropriate, although I’m not willing to go even that far without considerable trepidation. To say that they merited suspension, or administrative leave, or whatever euphemistic term the administration chooses to apply, is laughable: or, rather, it would be if the stakes weren’t so high. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, there is no reasonable conclusion other than that the administration are, collectively, at least one of the following: sexist, stupid, craven, pompous, anti-intellectual, vindictive, or just plain incompetent. Come to think of it, probably at least three or four off that list…

I might add “terminally constipated” to the list, but otherwise I stand by my earlier comments. All told, it’s a good day not to be at Appalachian State University.