During the March 18 Faculty Senate meeting, senators voted unanimously on a resolution showing their commitment to and their desire for cooperation with MSU administration toward academic freedom.The resolution came on the heels of the report of Michael Berk, architecture professor and faculty senator, to the Faculty Senate on the situation that developed when administrators called for the removal of student installations from the exterior of Giles Hall, and the interior shadow boxes which lined the hall’s windows.
Berk’s report was delayed until this meeting, due to a maroon alert cutting short the original Faculty Senate meeting on March 7.
“A lot has happened since I was going to present this report, but I’m glad to have the opportunity to still present it,” Berk said. “I was ready to say that we should move on, but many people here at MSU are saying it’s really important that we address this for the record.”
Berk said he did not originally foresee any problems pertaining to the installations produced by his students.
“The work in question just happened to be from my design studio,” Berk said. “We never saw the works as controversial in any such way; controversy was never on our radar.”
Berk gave a detailed account of the events that followed the removal of installations from Giles Hall.
“On Tuesday, March 4, President Foglesong met with us [members of the faculty of the school of architecture],” Berk said. “His first request was for us to be open and direct in our discussion; I then prefaced him with the seriousness of our meeting.”
Berk said the group of faculty read the president a statement detailing the department’s desire for academic freedom, and its belief that Foglesong’s opinion that they were not aesthetically pleasing prevented academic freedom.
“After the statement was read, Foglesong said, and I quote ‘I violently agree with that statement of academic freedom,'” Berk said. “There was silence in the room immediately after his comment. Following that, a lively and civil debate followed.”
According to Berk, after the debate, Foglesong said he understood the architecture department’s position and was comfortable with it. Silence followed again. Berk said he then addressed Foglesong’s Stategram on academic freedom.
“As the meeting was coming to an end, I let the president know that the State-Gram he sent out to the faculty, about an unnamed, unprofessional renegade department [architecture] was quite a shock to us,” Berk said. “I told him that it was one of the most demeaning and mean-spirited things a president could do to a nationally recognized school and its faculty and students.”
Faculty Senate President Robert Wolverton said with the resolution’s passing, the Senate is reaffirming its desire in a core academic belief. He also said the resolution is a strong showing for any future leaders of MSU.
“What we’re saying to the next leader here is that this concept of academic freedom is the most valuable thing we have,” Wolverton said. “I think someone coming in from a higher education background would understand this, but you can never be sure.”
Marita Gootee, a senator representing the department of art, said passing the resolution now, even though the administration and the architecture school had come to a mutual understanding, was still pertinent due to the resignation of Foglesong and the search for a permanent school president that will come.
“It came out of the events from the architecture school, but this is a very valid motion in this state and time,” Gootee said. “It is important for us to say that this is an important issue.”
Lou D’Abramo, a senator representing the department of wildlife and fisheries, also agreed that going on record with the resolution was in the best interest of MSU.
“The fact is that this did happen,” D’Abramo said. “Supporting this helps support the rest of the faculty and students.”
The faculty senate also voted to make all information from the 2008 confidence survey it recently issued. The survey featured 13 number rankings about the level of confidence of specific MSU officials and departments, while parts 14 and 15 were written statements about the strengths and weakness of MSU. Twenty senators voted yes, with zero nos and three abstentions, to display the comments section on the Robert Holland Faculty Senate Web site.
Wolverton discussed some of the results with the Senate.