To the Editor,
The bats will be removed from 29 Park Place. Despite the pretext and the furor it caused, the decision to find a new off-campus residence for President Roderick McDavis and First Lady Deborah McDavis appears made. What about the concerns hundreds of students rose in protest outside the abandoned mansion on March 31? The president himself refuses to address the issue, arguing that the trustees decided. All we have is Vice President Stephen Golding’s letter, published soon after the “Bat Rally.” He informed us that conversations about the relocation go back a year, even if most students, staff and faculty had no way of knowing. He referred to changes in campus geography and migration patterns, suggested there are other uses for the old house and stipulated that the new one has not yet been purchased, that they are “holding” the option but have “not exercised” it yet.
Nowhere did Golding address the central concern we heard articulated by the student protestors: not what will happen to 29 Park Place, but rather, why does spending over $1,000,000 on a house in the Athens suburbs for someone already earning $465,000 before bonuses take priority over other university needs? Why can’t this money be used to fund more scholarships for students of need (especially with tuition and student fees ever rising), speed-up repair of campus facilities in high demand, or grow the number of full-time, well-compensated faculty lines to keep up with the growing student population?
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As we see it, the students on March 31 demanded that we have a debate about funding priorities on our campus. They have called into question a corporatized vision of OU. Today, OU acts like other private big businesses. It demands more from its “consumers” — students — in the form of higher tuition and low-scale wages for student-workers. Meanwhile, a few administrators at the top enjoy plentiful benefits; at the bottom, though, adjunct professors may move from one course to another with little or no job security and overworked staff struggle to get by. What we heard the students asking on March 31 is: Why should this be the future of Ohio University?
We call on the faculty to take up this question and embrace a vision of the university where decisions are made, not inside a bubble insulated by money and privileges, but within a community that strives to be more equitable and listen to all of its members.
Kevin Mattson is president of the Ohio University AAUP. He wrote this letter on behalf of the Executive Committee. Mattson is a professor of history at Ohio University.
