I just learned that David McCullough will be paid $30,000, plus expenses, to be Ohio University's commencement speaker this year. Wow! He must be really important.
An OU spokesman said McCullough has an ideal message for this important time. What message does charging $30,000 communicate?
Major messages of the Bob Glidden presidency have been greed, widening the gap between the lowest and highest salaries at the university and making tuition increasingly unaffordable for many students. Is this the ideal message?
To pay this much in southeastern Ohio, in an area of high unemployment and low wages, is a message of insult.
What message does McCullough wish to communicate? I know that charging $30,000 for a speech communicates to me: greed, arrogance and an unrealistic sense of one's own importance.
One more question: How much fossil fuel will be burnt up and how much pollution will be added to God's creation in order to fly that new special airplane to bring McCullough to Athens?
So what was that ideal message?
-Art Gish
Athens
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