POSTED BY MARTIN KICH
This is a follow-up to Hank Reichman’s post on the news coverage of the most recent debacle at the University of Akron. John McNay, the President of the Ohio Conference, wrote a letter to the Akron administration that found its way into an article by Amanda Garrett published in the Beacon-Journal. What follows are some excepts from that article:
The president of a group that represents about 6,000 Ohio professors sent a scathing letter Friday to the University of Akron president and its board of trustees, questioning their push into competitive video gaming while eliminating academic programs.
“It is as though you are saying: Well, we are bored with education so let’s play games instead,” penned John T. McNay, who leads the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
He said UA appears to be thinking like a corporation rather than an academic institution, valuing any product that generates revenue as the same as any other.
“So playing games is the same as educating Ohio’s students for life and careers,” the letter said. “This shows a serious lack of judgment and indicates that you are violating the trust that has been placed in your hands for protecting and enhancing the University of Akron.” . . .
McNay countered [the rationale offered by the administration for the program cuts] by asking UA officials what they had done to promote the degrees before deciding to kill them.
“When did you take a special interest, for example, in promoting the History graduate program?” he asked in the letter. “What quality university does not have a History graduate program?”
McNay said his group watched “baffled and outraged by the destructive and senseless acts” of former UA President Scott Scarborough, who abruptly stepped down in 2016 after a tumultuous couple of years that included moves to rebrand the school as a polytechnic institution.
Scarborough was replaced by the dean of the University of Akron Law School, Matthew Wilson, who stepped down this year. He has been temporarily replaced by John Green, dean of the university’s College of Buchtel Arts and Sciences, while university officials do a national search to find the school’s next leader.
“We had hoped that we were beyond [Scarborough’s ideas to change the school] now but it appears that these actions are simply a replay of the whole shameful episode,” McNay wrote.
Amanda Garrett’s complete article is available at:
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