GUEST POST BY JULIA K. GRUBER

I am a professor and AAUP chapter president at Tennessee Technological University, the institution that has recently been in the news for its collaboration with the glider kit “Zombie truck” producing company Fitzgerald. The situation escalated last week, when four professors (myself included) received a rather threatening letter from the company, asking TTU to track our emails.

Here is the chain of events that has led us to our present situation:

• Administrators are being hired directly, with no search, without the proper credentials for their jobs.
• Costs of upper administration have mushroomed while TTU faces budget restraints and layoffs.
• Fitzgerald Glider Kits, which has contributed heavily to Representative Diane Black, doesn’t want EPA pollution regulations for trucks to apply to their product.
• TTU Board member Millard Oakley has close personal and business ties to Fitzgerald, and is listed as management in one of their other businesses.
• Fitzgerald engaged TTU to test their engines to see if they really are, as EPA claims, heavily polluting.
• A member of the engineering faculty was listed as principal investigator of the study.
• After the study supported Fitzgerald’s claims, Fitzgerald gave TTU use of one of their buildings for a new center.
• The study was conducted by a first-year grad student with no faculty supervision, and was interpreted–without faculty input–by an upper level administrator whose only academic credential is a bachelor’s degree in business. This administrator’s name was listed as PI instead of the engineering professor in subsequent documentation.
• President Oldham signed a letter sent to Diane Black with interpretation of the study in Fitzgerald’s favor; Fitzgerald cited the report in a letter to EPA chief Scott Pruitt asking for an exemption for their product.
• Fitzgerald has hired one of Black’s former staffers as their congressional lobbyist.
• Pruitt announced that the rule concerning truck emissions would not apply to glider kits.
• Pruitt’s own EPA scientists challenged the results and methodology of the TTU study.
• The College of Engineering has protested the methodology and results of the study, and the administration’s role.
• National media has focused on the issue, making TTU look corrupt and incompetent.
• Two U.S. Senators and two past leaders of the EPA have condemned the proposed change in regulation, citing the TTU study.
• Faculty Senate and AAUP have demanded a thorough and objective investigation.
• This administration has repeatedly ignored questions about the ethical questions centered on conflicts of interest, and have directed attention only to questions of the study’s methodology.
The Coalition of Concerned Faculty, Students and Community organized a rally on March 22, right before the Board meeting.

Here is an excellent blog that sheds some light on what faculty has done to distance themselves from the Fitzgerald study. The New York Times reporter who did several articles on Fitzgerald’s collaboration with TTU, collected all information, including original documents, in this document cloud. Engineering faculty, who are also faculty senators, have composed a memo about this topic.

Both the campus AAUP and the Faculty Senate urged the Board NOT to extend a five year contract to President Oldham at their next board meeting, but to wait until the completion of the investigation. As of last week, board members maintain that the President, whom they praise as a visionary, has handled the situation well. They just gave him that contract today!

Ed McDaniel, President of United Campus Workers, reports:

In the past week, a legislative agenda attacking higher education in Tennessee has taken shape; it’s a full-fledged campaign against our campuses and our mission to critically educate our students. We already knew about the destructive UT FOCUS Act, but in the past several days more bills have gained steam which we should be very concerned about.

• A new piece of legislation which will change general education requirements that attacks humanities courses.
• A bill that creates so-called “efficiency committees,” which are a backdoor for outsourcing and specifically targeting higher education institutions, where we’ve just beat back privatization.
• A bill right out of the ALEC playbook that calls for “syllabi transparency,” exposing what our faculty are teaching in the classroom to political scrutiny and meddling.
• And of course the UT FOCUS Act, which would liquidate the UT Board of Trustees, radically reduce its size, and eliminate guarantees of faculty, student, campus, legislative district, and minority representation.
Many legislators were surprised to hear about this anti-higher education agenda.