Thanks, Robert.

Seeker wrote:

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Robert What is your position at your current University? I am asking because it seems that you are much more concerned about the happenings at Southern Miss than at your own institution.

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Seeker, It is the attack against "the academy" that Robert and the faculty oppose.  The institution where it occurs is not really that important.

Just my $0.02.

Reporter wrote:

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Seeker, It is the attack against "the academy" that Robert and the faculty oppose.  The institution where it occurs is not really that important. Just my $0.02.

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Spot on!

Seeker,

Well, as Reporter said, I am concerned about attacks on "the academy."  And I have some past experience with them, although there were not nearly as virulent as the attacks mounted by Shelby Thames and his backers.  More generally, as a libertarian, I don't like people who abuse power.

The very worst university administrators despise professors as a class, and deliberately appeal to anti-faculty sentiment.  People who hate or distrust professors can be found everywhere (not just in Mississippi) and, with sufficient encouragement, they can help destroy a university.  We had a president at Clemson (Max Lennon, 1986-1994) who, when his hold on power was slipping, encouraged the Greenville News to run anti-faculty editorials.  Fortunately, the interim president who succeeded him (Phil Prince, 1994-1995) had the sense to realize what would happen to Clemson if this continued unabated.  He placed an op-ed in the Greenville News calling for an end to attacks on the faculty.  I doubt we'll see an end to such attacks by USM alumni until Thames is out of office.

I have also had experiences in the past with university employees who lie on their resumes--and the administrators who protect them.  So I could relate immediately to Frank Glamser and Gary Stringer's plight, when Thames tried to punish them instead of Angie Dvorak.

I've been in the thick of some struggles at Clemson in the past.  At present, we have an administration that is far from perfect but actually cares about academic values, has become much more realistic than its predecessors about where the money is going to come from, and is working to improve Clemson, which has been moving up in the US News rankings since the mid-1990s.  (As you know, the Thames regime has had the exact opposite effect on USM.)  So these days there is far less for me to be concerned about at Clemson--though as a Faculty Senator, I'm still paying fairly close attention to what's going on.

If you want to see what classes I teach or what research I do, my website is

http://www.robertlcampbell.com

Robert Campbell

PS. Many of the folks who run the Clemson University Foundation are administration loyalists, as you might expect.  Most of them are conservative Republicans, as you might also expect. But they are also polite to the point of dullness, because their work requires them to keep on the good side of individuals and companies that might give to the university.  No one with Toy McLaughlin's temperament would ever be allowed to become an officer of the CU Foundation.  They'd be convinced that he would drive away potential donors.

Seeker wrote:

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Robert What is your position at your current University? I am asking because it seems that you are much more concerned about the happenings at Southern Miss than at your own institution.

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Academics, particularly in our current culture, are part of a larger community than simply the university they teach in. In this sense the term "academia" represents regional, national and iternational intersecting communities of intellectual activity that occur among academics. Robert's concern about what is going on here is just as legitimate as a citizen's concern about what is going on in another state if he realizes that what is going on may have an impact on his state and his region.

This may,in fact, be a bit of a problem within the local community. Many academics in any university of note are not "home grown" and they bring to a community a diffferent sense of loyalities, cultural identifities and beliefs. I suspect that is one reasons why univsities in big cities where the population is diverse and mobile aren't called upon to support prevailing cultural norms -- the cultural norms are simply too diverse and constantly in flux, unlike smaller towns and regions that are less urbanized.  

CW Fan wrote:

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Who is John Galt?

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John Galt

Reporter wrote:

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Correct Stephen.  You should have been in Hattiesburg when the interstate opened.  Suddenly you had people from the "sin city" of New Orleans 2 hours away.  Faculty coming to USM in the late sixties were in for culture shock, as were the people of H'burg. 

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Reporter dredged up some real memories for ol' Invictus, who can remember when "the new part of town" was west of Highway 49. There were some of us, though, who felt that H'burg got short shrift when I-59 by-passed the city rather than running through town as it did in Laurel. (Of course, 40 years' hindsight tells us that some things cannot be accurately predicted...)

I remember being somewhat enthralled as a kid by the sign on I-59 just below Sullivan-Killraine truck stop (I guess that's now the Hwy 11 exit) that said "New Orleans - 100 miles" ...

Shelby's a loser, and so's SMTTT

disgusted student wrote:

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Amen

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ds,

You sure are getting an education in the intelligence of Shelby's defenders, aren't you? 

I would guess that a significant number of the posters and readers for this site are not presently at USM. I'm sure that most have ties either via degrees, previous employment, children, or colleagues. As my name implies, I am not there. RC is one of the few bold enough to use his name and time to make a stronger contribution, and I certainly appreciate it.

This site is the chance to see history in the making, literature in its formative stages. Faculty at their bightest and most empassioned. It is truly inspriing.

I wouldn't miss it for the world.

USM S: View from a Distance said it all for me. Yes, some of my best educational moments have come from this board. However I do wish that the Troll Zapper would remove the rantings of that insane repetitive poster.

Thank you TZ. How do we get the webmaster to remove them? It takes so long to scroll over them. If there was only a sentence or two I could ignore the rant and I don't read it but it's a nuisance to scroll down so far.

Thanks, Web Master!  If there is anyway you can trace the name and address of the idot who goes by the name SMTTT, you may want to send the men in the white coats over to his residence.  I think he may finally have gone over the edge!  I'm worried about him; he seriously needs to get back on his meds.