The letter that Joseph McLaughlin and David Drabold wrote last week in response to President Roderick McDavis moving to 31 Coventry Lane continues to gain new signatures.
More faculty members have publicly said they would like administrators to reconsider a lease for a new home for President Roderick McDavis and his wife, Deborah.
These requests were outlined in a letter to The Post, which when initially submitted had 83 faculty signatures, but reached 100 signatures by the end of last week.
Last Monday, Associate Professor of English Joseph McLaughlin and Distinguished Professor of Physics David Drabold distributed a letter to about 20 colleagues who further circulated the letter.
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“Just about every faculty member I’ve talked to is very upset about this,” McLaughlin said, who called the Coventry lane house “lavish” and an “inappropriate expense.”
“It’s not just about that money. It’s about the fact that they are misspending $1.2 million,” McLaughlin said. “I really believe that’s going to impact our ability to get students and families to want to pay more tuition.”
The OU Foundation, the university’s nonprofit, fundraising entity, has agreed to lease the house for $1.2 million.
McLaughlin feels the money from OU Foundation could have instead funded students’ scholarships.
“I think it sends a very bad message from the top of the administration about the degree to which they value community,” McLaughlin said. “The president is moving to a McMansion out in the suburbs.”
The money could also fund construction in other university buildings, said Bernhard Debatin, professor of journalism, who signed the letter.
“Glidden Hall is so bad that valuable pianos are basically getting slowly destroyed over time due to the lack of proper insulation and the lack of property humidity control,” Debatin said.
He has been at OU since 2000 and has seen two presidencies: Glidden and McDavis. Debatin said Glidden and other presidents had gatherings at the house that ranged from meetings, celebrations, invitations and dinner parties. Since President McDavis, the house has been underused, he said.
“It is very obvious that this bat incident was just a very convenient excuse to make a move,” Debatin said. “It’s just ridiculous.”
Debatin has been to 29 Park Place a number of times and said he would move in there in a heartbeat.
“Among faculty I would say morale is as low as it ever can get,” Debatin said.
Living on campus is a tradition for OU’s presidents, said Geoffrey Buckley•, professor and undergraduate chair of the Department of Geography•, who signed the letter.
“I think that this only kind of reinforces a separation between the administration and faculty and the wider student body,” Buckley said. “This move from 29 Park to Coventry sort of is a manifestation of that separation that’s sort of been brewing for a while.”
People don’t see McDavis very often and his presence will only further diminish now that he is living off-campus, Buckley said.
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McDavis is not going to be president forever, Buckley points out, and a future OU president might want to occupy 29 Park Place.
“I’d hate to see us not only make a decision that affects the president, but that makes it sort of a foregone conclusion in the future,” Buckley said, who has been at OU since 1998.
@megankhenry
