When Ohio University administrators met with representatives of A.T. Kearny Education Practice last week to discuss the search for a new university president, they allotted no time for students to take part. There were just too many meetings taking place to schedule additional time for students, said Board of Trustees secretary Alan Geiger. It's OK, though - students eventually will be able to present their views, Student Affairs Vice President Mike Sostarich said, at an as-yet unscheduled forum when candidates have been selected. But in a task as important as selecting the next president of the university, students should not take this rhetorical pat on the head and sit on their hands.
Administrators have given no real reason for excluding normal students from the presidential search committee. They insist the two students involved - Graduate Student Senate President Mike Willits and student trustee Tara Stuckey - will remind the committee of students' wants and needs. This hardly seems likely. Willits and Stuckey are very closely enmeshed with the university administration and have been in the bureaucratic game so long they are removed from most students. Willits at least was elected by grad students and has their mandate, but Stuckey's rank came from a gubernatorial decree, the wrong direction for the search committee to look for input.
The search committee might claim students' transience makes it pointless to include them in looking for a new president - why involve them heavily if they will be gone in a year? Because, as the Boston University Student Underground wrote, students are more than walking, tuition-paying transcripts. Beyond one class's specific concerns, student affairs - from housing to recreation to Halloween - will always be a part of the OU experience. Administrators should listen to what regular students want out of their next president before they decide on candidates in their closed-door sessions.
Faith-based funding wrong
With a new initiative by Ohio's anti-smoking agency, preachers at the pulpit could be actively working to end one of America's worst habits: smoking.
The Ohio Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Foundation has begun an initiative to give grants to churches in order to spread the word about the ills of smoking. A church in Columbus was awarded the first grant, which provides $150,000 per year for three years. Supporters say similar initiatives were successful in other states.
There is a strong possibility the grant money will have some sort of positive effect on smokers. But, funding like this easily could set a dangerous precedent. President Bush has made a point to include faith-based organizations in his plan to better the United States and was adamant about their role in America's future during his State of the Union address this week. There is nothing wrong with religious belief for any American. The right to religious choice is one of the foundations of this country. But the framers of the Constitution also were smart enough to know that church and state did not mix. Any sign of favoritism could drastically impact the credibility of the government.
Ohio's and America's deep history with Christianity acts as a built-in bias towards that faith. The very fact this money is going to a Christian church naturally would exclude members of other faiths, even though the services provided by the church would be open to all. There are so many other places that can and in some cases already do the same job as the church in anti-smoking promotions - community centers, hospitals, schools, fitness organizations and countless others - without the built-in controversy of getting the church involved.
The vast majority of faith-based organizations do a tremendous amount of good on a person-to-person basis and are surely appreciated by those that they help and Americans in general. But giving government money to a particular religious organization, no matter how noble the recipient and how worthy the cause, goes against the separation of church and state that forms the bedrock of the American governmental system.
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