I thought this might be of interest and concern. It needs signed and
returned by Monday May 7.
>>> [log in to unmask] 05/05/01 12:42PM >>>
Dear Colleagues,
This is for those of you who are from the United States. My apologies for
adding to the e-mail of those of you who are not. On the other hand, many
more of you may be interested in following this case, regardless of your
country. David Noble has for many years been one of the leading social
historians of the place of technology in the automation of heavy industry;
in the deskilling and alienation of labor; in the and in the ideology of
progress in the information age. He deserves whatever attention and support
the international media and communication research community can offer.
Andrew Calabrese
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Colorado
[log in to unmask]
http://spot.colorado.edu/~calabres/
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob McChesney [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 12:56
To: Andrew Calabrese
Subject: Noblegate
Andrew,
Please send this to every any U.S. professor you know who might be
interested in academic freedom issues. We are trying to keep David Noble
from losing his job for political reasons.
Bob
Dear Colleague:
You may have heard that David Noble was selected to occupy a Chair in
the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Canada, but was then denied
this appointment by adminsitrative fiat. As the decisions in this case
have not yet been finalized, we have prepared a letter of protest from U.S.
academics to be sent to a Simon Fraser officer having a role in this
decision process. To assist you in understanding the issues involved we
have attached a letter of protest sent by concerned academics at the
University of Western Ontario, along with a backgrounder prepared by David
Noble.
We want you to join us and sign on to this protest letter. If you are
agreeable, please send your assent, along with your position and
university, to Bob McChesney at his e-mail address: [log in to unmask]
Please respond by Monday, May 7 at the very latest so we can send this
letter off on Tuesday, May 8.
Thank you very much.
Edward S. Herman
Robert W. McChesney
Here is the letter:
As U.S. academics, we write to protest Simon Fraser University's
cancellation of Dr. David Noble's appointment to the J.S. Woodsworth
Chair in the Humanities and to express our support for Dr. Noble as a
scholar and democratic activist.
As we understand it, the Woodsworth Chair is named for a
distinguished Canadian labor activist and is being underwritten by
trade unions and progressive individuals. Dr. Noble would appear to
be an almost perfect choice for such an appointment. He has combined
eminent scholarship relevant to labor issues and, more broadly,
social sciences and the humanities, with a political activism that
represents genuine democracy and is in the spirit of J. S. Woodworth
and the Chair sponsors.
Dr. Noble's qualifications as a scholar are beyond question. He ranks
in the global first tier of historians of technology; those of us who
work in this field honor him as a groundbreaking scholar whose
reputation spans nearly a quarter-century. There are no grounds,
intellectual or scholarly, by which he fails to qualify for the
Woodsworth Chair.
We strongly urge you to recognize the suitability of Dr. Noble for
the J.S. Woodsworth Chair, as well as the damage to the university's
reputation that would follow from his rejection. The long-term
interests of Simon Fraser University will not be served by allowing
this selection to be blocked by political and interest group
opposition.
To us, this seems to be a case where nothing less than academic
freedom at Simon Fraser University hangs in the balance. We urge you
to do the right thing and make certain that Dr. Noble is appointed to
the Woodsworth Chair that he deserves.
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