Free Speech, Due Process, and the Presidency at FSU: A Reply to Barney Bishop, etc

Free Speech, Due Process, and the Presidency at FSU: A Reply to Barney Bishop

"No one’s perfect, least of all university professors -- at least I speak for myself. We do our best daily to encourage students to speak their minds, write and create well, and think critically. When we fail, we try again. Independent thought, evaluation of evidence, and open discussion are the core of our profession.

So, when Alberto Pimentel, managing partner at the firm conducting Florida State University’s presidential search, claimed that one of the current four candidates “would not be a viable candidate in any other state,” the remark caused concern and for good reason.
  
FSU now faces three urgent challenges to its national standing: (1) It seeks membership in the Association of American Universities, a nonprofit organization of 62 leading universities in the United States and Canada. (2) Its athletic program has attracted national scrutiny due to situations with which we are all familiar. And (3) it has fallen from 40th to 43rd in the US News rankings of national public universities.

Reasonable people may differ about which of the four candidates under consideration for the FSU presidency can best meet these challenges.

The FSU Faculty Senate and its resolutions are one way that FSU faculty members express their opinions within the larger FSU community. The Senate’s resolution of Sept. 10 was an expression of the Senate’s concerns -- no more, no less -- hardly a personal, partisan, or political attack.

Universities operate through open discussion. The process of peer review is central to faculty hiring, annual review, promotion, and tenure decisions. Faculty members depend on criticism from colleagues to improve their research and teaching. When we give professional talks or submit research manuscripts to academic journals, we expect to receive criticism that will improve our writing. What may look like an “attack” in the Sept. 10 resolution is, in a university setting, “business as usual.”

By that token, faculty is an extremely conservative bunch. We aim to preserve an environment for the free exchange of ideas that is part of a long academic tradition. We uphold and defend an environment in which neither money, nor popularity, nor political affiliation determine the worth of ideas.

From this point of view, the best reason to choose one candidate over others as FSU’s next president is that the final choice has emerged under scrutiny by the university’s various stakeholders in open, public discussion. There is nothing personal, uncivil, or unprofessional about this process. In a democracy, and under our Constitution, free deliberation is an eminently conservative, deeply American value.

The time for public debate is now. After the final selection of a new president, FSU’s faculty will greet it with the utmost professionalism, regardless of the choice. Collegiality, collaboration, and mutual respect, despite differences, are the other values that faculty hold dear.

This week, FSU and the public will hear from all four current presidential candidates who, together, possess a surplus of nationally recognized talent. We can hope that the discussion will remain free and open in the spirit of the great, national, public university that FSU is and aims to become.


(Editor's note: This column is in response to Barney Bishop's Sept. 11 column in Sunshine State News, "Ivory Tower Professors' Opposition to John Thrasher Is Why He Must Be FSU’s Next President").


Joseph Hellweg is an associate professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State University. His research is on religion and performance in West Africa. He is a recipient of two Fulbright Fellowships and a 2014 recipient of the Developing Scholar Award at FSU."

Thrasher heckled during mostly civil interview for FSU president

"Hundreds of students, faculty and staff came out Monday directing pointed questions to Sen. John Thrasher, an influential political figure who is the lone non-academic finalist for the job of Florida State University president.

During on-campus forums that are part of the presidential selection process, students and faculty often expressed a lack of trust in Thrasher, long considered the front runner for the university job.

During his long political career, Thrasher has steered millions of state dollars to the university and helped create the FSU medical school, but he also has recorded numerous votes that have been opposed by teachers and unions.

Thrasher, at one point Monday, threatened to walk out due to heckling.

Some faculty called Thrasher's responses "vacuous."

"He's saying that nothing in the past matters regarding his votes, but he keeps mentioning his (legislative) funding for the medical school," said Michael Buchler, associate professor of music theory. "He can't have it both ways."

Still, the series of forums, while at times testy, were predominantly civil and also included support from faculty and students.

"Talking to people helps. They realize I don't have horns," Thrasher, a St. Augustine Republican, said during a break between groups. "I am who I am, and I think they're beginning to understand that."

Thrasher, the first of four finalists to take part in the campus forums this week, spoke of his love for the school and his plans for advocacy if he is offered the presidency by the university's Board of Trustees next week.

Thrasher, a former House speaker who is chairman of Gov. Rick Scott's re-election campaign, also assured faculty there would be no retribution against his alma mater in the upcoming legislative session if he fails to get the presidency.

"Nothing bad is going to happen to Florida State University," said Thrasher, an avowed FSU "homer" who received his undergraduate and law degrees from the Tallahassee school.

"I think more good can happen if I become president. I mean that in all sincerity and with great humility," Thrasher continued. "I really believe that we can make a difference, quite frankly, in the public sector and private sector, to make a difference financially for this university."

Still, at one point Thrasher threatened to walk out due to heckling from a small group, mostly graduate assistant students, seated in the front during the faculty forum, while he was acknowledging a need to learn more about climate change.

"If I'm going to get heckled from the front row, by people laughing and making jokes about it, then I'm not going to stay. I don't think it's fair to you and me," Thrasher said, breaking from his response regarding climate change.

Thrasher later said he "just wanted to get their attention" and that after his comment the individuals behaved.

Thrasher talked to three groups — university staff, faculty and students — before a community reception was held, all in the school's Augustus B. Turnbull III Florida State Conference Center.

Thrasher is seeking to succeed former President Eric Barron, an academic with a track record in fundraising who was named president of Penn State University in February.

Michele G. Wheatly, who until June had been provost at West Virginia University, will go through the review process on Tuesday.

Colorado State University System Chancellor Michael V. Martin is scheduled for Wednesday.

The fourth finalist, Richard B. Marchase, University of Alabama at Birmingham vice president for research and economic development, is set to appear Friday.

Using feedback from the forums, the university's 27-member Presidential Search Advisory Committee is scheduled Sept. 22 to make a recommendation to the university's trustees.

The trustees, who would still have to forward the final choice to the university system's Board of Governors, are scheduled to meet Sept. 23.

Thrasher faced questions about issues such as how he would increase diversity on campus, his lack of academic credentials, his legislative support for prison privatization, his support of a proposal that would have moved toward splitting the Florida A&M University-FSU College of Engineering and his continued desire for the job despite the student and faculty opposition.

Some of the students see Thrasher as an extension of the politically influential Koch brothers, whose foundation since 2008 has helped fund the FSU economics department.

The billionaire brothers draw distain from some students for their support for conservative endeavors and for what is seen as the foundation's influence over the curriculum and hiring of professors.

Faculty questioned Thrasher about his support for a bill (HB 115) signed into law this year that allows university direct-support organization boards to meet in private when they discuss donors or potential donors, proposals for research funding or plans for initiating or supporting research.

Thrasher told faculty members that while he voted for the bill, university contributions "should come with no strings attached."

Sitting in a chair before about 100 members of the FSU staff in the morning, nearly 200 faculty and later about 150 students, Thrasher acknowledged his law degree from the school may not be the academic credentials desired by many of the faculty. But he said there would be no stronger advocate for the school, its faculty and students. More importantly, he indicated that through his extensive legislative and lobbying experience, he would be able to complete the $1 billion fundraising goal set by Barron in 2013.

"I know how to do it, I know how to get things accomplished," Thrasher said."