Appalachian State University’s Faculty Senate has expressed “serious reservations” about the appointment of Margaret Spellings as president of the UNC system.
A resolution by the ASU Faculty Senate passed this week 27-0 with four abstentions. The lengthy resolution also cited concerns about the secretive nature of the presidential search and a lack of faculty input in the process.
The resolution was blunt in its assessment of Spellings, the former U.S. education secretary under President George W. Bush, saying that Spellings “has a record of pursuing policies that are contrary to the very idea and integrity of public higher education.”
It cited “intolerant remarks and actions against the LGBT community” and Spellings’ federal accountability efforts closely tied to standardized testing – No Child Left Behind and her commission on higher education. The resolution also raised questions about Spellings’ service on the board of the Apollo Group, the parent company of the for-profit University of Phoenix, which has been investigated for its recruiting practices. Spellings has also been head of an advisory board for Ceannate, a private company that services student loans....
J.W. Williamson was the founding editor in 1972 of the Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review, which he edited until July of 2000. He has taught college classes in Appalachian history, cultural politics, and literature, and he has lectured widely on the pop-culture history of "Appalachia" in the American consciousness. His books include Interviewing Appalachia, Southern Mountaineers in Silent Films, and Hillbillyland: What the Mountains Did to the Movies and What the Movies Did to the Mountains. He has won the Thomas Wolfe Award given by the Western North Carolina Historical Society, the Laurel Leaves Award given by the Appalachian Consortium, a special Weatherford Award given by Berea College, and the Cratis Williams-James Brown Award given by the Appalachian Studies Association.
The views expressed on WataugaWatch are solely those of J.W. Williamson or individual contributors and are not necessarily shared nor endorsed by the Watauga County Democratic Party nor by any other adults of sound mind in this or any other universe.
No comments:
Post a Comment