As a former member of the Ohio University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, I wish to thank the current OU-AAUP officers for their concern and involvement with two issues here at OU.
1) Engineering Professor Robert Lipset's David and Goliath age discrimination struggle with the university, and 2) university governance matters relating to budgets, budget cuts and plans for the future with Vision Ohio
etc.
A letter of mine in support of Lipset was published in the Feb. 9 edition of The Post. In my letter I suggested that anyone interested might get a copy of the Ohio Civil Right Commission Jan. 12 FINAL ORDER from the OCRC in Columbus. I am pleased that the OU-AAUP has posted the entire document on their web site.
This 13-page double-spaced final order is a most interesting document. I urge all faculty and others with a concern for OU to check this out by going to the OU-AAUP web site www.aaup-ou.org and clicking on Current Issues where you will find The Case of Robert Lipset.
Even though OU has chosen to drag this Lipset matter out by appealing the OCRC's order, it is still not too late for President Roderick McDavis and Provost Kathy Krendl to concretely demonstrate some genuine diversity commitment by ending OU's stonewalling. Please comply with the OCRC's order.
As an OU emeritus professor who was also an active member of the OU-AAUP Chapter over a quarter of a century ago, I am encouraged that the current OU-AAUP group is asking important questions relative to university governance, budgets, budget cuts, priorities, Vision Ohio, etc. Back in the early to mid 1970s, another time of great turmoil at OU, our AAUP group was also concerned with issues of collegial vs. corporate models for university governance.
Unfortunately, the corporate, top-down model seems to have mostly taken the field. Please hang in there, my OU-AAUP colleagues. It is important that your voices become a more significant part of OU's governance.
- Chuck Overby, Ph.D., P.E.; Emeritus Professor in the IMSE department
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