I have blogged this
and sent it to others who might sign
L
On Sat, August 4, 2012 00:05, Marthe Reed wrote:
> Forwarded on behalf of Bill Lavender and as requested by Anny Ballardini.
> Please read and please contact the President and Provost of UNO to
> protest this shocking treatment of Bill Lavender.
>
> President Peter Fos, [log in to unmask]
> Provost Louis Paradis, [log in to unmask]
>
>
> Marthe Reed
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Anny Ballardini <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 4:45 PM
> Subject: Bill Lavender
> To: [log in to unmask], Susan E Krantz <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask],
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> An open letter to
> Fredrick Barton, Director of Creative Writing, [log in to unmask]
> Susan Krantz, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, [log in to unmask]
> University of New Orleans
>
>
> Cc: President, Peter Fos
> Provost, Louis Paradise
>
>
> From: Students of the Low Residency MFA Program
>
>
> We are now in receipt of Rick Barton's communication to the UNO on-campus
> MFA community notifying students that Bill Lavender's position has
> fallen victim to the "draconian budget cuts" of the Jindal administration
> and thanking him for his service at UNO. The message was forwarded to us
> by a concerned on-campus student, for Bill Lavender's reputation is not
> limited to the low res program. If you have not seen this email, please
> see it pasted below this message.
>
> While we can appreciate this, virtually the only recognition Bill has
> received for his 15 years of selfless service to UNO, we will not stand by
> and see his dismissal blamed on "budget cuts." You, Barton and Krantz,
> know that his dismissal was plotted by you in advance; the "budget cuts"
> were merely a convenient screen to hide your true motives.
>
> This is proven by several facts, the most damning of which is the fact
> the Barton was actually in San Miguel de Allende at the time Bill's
> dismissal was announced, planning to move the study-abroad program there.
> It is
> obvious, then, that Bill's dismissal was a pre-ordained fact, that Barton
> was assuming he would no longer be a part of the program at the time he
> bought his tickets. Rick Barton, would you like to produce the receipt
> that shows the date of purchase of your tickets?
>
> The dishonesty of blaming this unconscionable take-over on budget cuts by
> the Jindal administration, while cast as a polite, white lie, perhaps
> even as a kind gesture to spare Bill's feelings and ease the enormous
> emotional loss that this must be for him, it is in fact the lowest form of
> capitulation. The Jindal administration, and the national cartel of
> corporations from which he draws his support and his policy, have set
> their sights on nothing less than the destruction of public education.
> When you
> lie and blame his dismissal on "budget cuts" you are in fact supporting
> this policy, acting as Jindal's emissaries on campus, plotting the
> destruction of the very thing you purport to save.
>
> Everyone, of course, in privileged America and Europe, plays the role of
> assassin's assistant to one degree or another. We shop at Wal-Mart; we pay
> our bills to AT&T; our retirement funds are all invested in the very
> corporations which, through ALEC and the other conservative think tanks,
> are now writing education policy for conservative politicians. But today
> we ask you to give the devil his due, to pull down your masks and tell the
> truth. So now, right now, you two, for the record, in front of all the
> writing students at UNO, CWW and low res alike, in front of these alumni,
> in front of all these faculty at UNO and all the visiting faculty who have
> taught online and in the abroad programs Bill led, faculty at universities
> all over the US and Europe, in front of your Provost, President, and
> Governor,
> in front of all the authors Bill published at UNO Press, writers and poets
> from America, Italy, Japan, Spain, Ecuador, Zimbabwe, Brazil, England,
> France, Algeria, Venezuela, in front, too, of posterity, those who will
> come after us seeking truth the way we did when we first came to the
> university, having faith that it would be found, in front of all those
> who will look back at you and know that you held the keys to knowledge, to
> truth, in your time, in front, in short, of the whole world, please tell
> us why, after fifteen years of service during which Bill Lavender created
> and gave to UNO a degree program of national prominence and high
> profitability, generating millions of dollars in tuition that would not
> have been there otherwise, and built a press of international distinction
> that is now in the unheard-of position of being self-supporting, he has
> been dismissed with less notice than is normally afforded to a janitor,
> and four professors who were hired less than a year ago have been
> retained.
>
>
> --
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
> star! Friedrich Nietzsche
>
>
> « Stulta est clementia, cum tot ubique
> vatibus occurras, periturae parcere chartae » Giovenale
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Marthe Reed
> Director of Creative Writing
> Assistant Professor
> English Department
> UL Lafayette
> 337-482-5503
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~mxr5675/home.html
>
>
> http://www.blackradishbooks.org/Reed.html
> _____________________________________
> *
> Poetry is made in a bed like love*
> *Its rumpled sheets are the dawn of things*
> *Poetry is made in the woods*
>
>
> --Andre Breton, "On the road to San Romano"
>
>
-----
Lawrence Upton
Visiting Fellow, Music Dept,
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
----
|