Members debate academic freedom in University life
By JASON McFARLEY
Assistant News Editor
Campus Life Council (CLC) members on Monday defeated a Faculty Senate-drafted resolution on student academic freedom and will likely reject two other measures at the body's next meeting.
The Council voted 8-3 Monday to refuse the senate proposal which highlights a discrepancy between the academic freedom guaranteed to professors by the faculty handbook and that granted to students in du Lac. With both CLC faculty members in favor of the resolution, the vote marked yet another point of contention for the Council, which has struggled in recent weeks with in-fighting.
Debate at the meeting may have also signaled the end for two other faculty senate resolutions that the CLC will consider at its March 26 meeting. One deals with disciplinary hearing procedures for student organizations, and the other targets faculty participation in major revisions of du Lac.
Discussion Monday seemed to pit CLC rectors and administrators at odds with faculty involvement in non-academic student life matters against professors Stuart Greene and Ed Manier.
It was the second consecutive meeting at which members debated the issues. On Feb. 19, members agreed to table discussion and resume talks at the CLC's next meeting.
"To some degree, academic freedom extends beyond the classroom, but it doesn't apply to all areas of University life," Brother Jerome Meyer, Knott Hall rector, said Monday.
Bill Kirk, who called the resolutions "fundamentally flawed" at the last CLC meeting, re-affirmed his opposition to the proposals Monday.
"I can assure you that I will vigorously disagree with the passage of these resolutions," said Kirk, assistant vice president for student affairs. "I will continue to fight them within the CLC because I don't believe they have a chance of passing in the Office of Student Affairs."
Playing off concerns that the resolutions were a faculty attempt to jeopardize the Catholic character of the Notre Dame, Manier told members that the academic freedom the measures address does not contravene the moral mission of the University.
"Academic freedom doesn't apply to everything, but it certainly applies to groups like the philosophy club or the government club — organizations in which we should encourage the spirit of inquiry and advocacy," said Manier, whose senate committee drafted the resolutions.
But Father David Scheidler, St. Ed's rector, said the resolutions were a veiled attempt to permit student groups such as the Women's Resource Center (WRC) to engage in "questionable" behavior.
In April 1998 the University placed the center on probation following sanctions for distributing literature on abortion. The WRC has since been taken off probation.
"What we're getting at is groups like the WRC which distributed questionable material under at least two faculty advisers," Scheidler said. "What worries me is that we will allow that kind of looseness to take place."
Scheidler's frank comment followed a plea earlier in the meeting by student CLC members for the council to get past recent group dissension. Seven students wrote a letter calling for members to work more cooperatively and effectively to implement policy.
"Without a basic sense of respect for one another and a willingness to listen with an open mind, the Council loses its potential for greatness," the students wrote in the letter. "At the current time, we feel that we are not only far from achieving this greatness, but also far from being even productive."
Brendan Dowdall, Becky Hagelin, Luciana Reali, Jamie Sablich, Amy Szestak, Tony Wagner and Seth Whetzel signed the letter.
"We believe the council is devolving due to long-standing feuds, bickering and name-calling, in addition to the aforementioned general lack of respect," the students wrote.
Szestak encouraged each member to take the letter's intent to heart.
"The letter speaks for itself. It calls for all of us to conduct ourselves better than we have in the past," she said. "It's not directed at one member but at all of us."
All News Stories for Tuesday, March 6, 2001
