'This isn't what our campus supports'

The decision to ask former Missouri Governor and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to speak at Truman's graduation ceremony and receive an honorary degree has caused an uproar among students and faculty.

Professor of history Jerry Hirsch moderated the AAUP forum Monday. The panel for the forum spoke about different issues, including a brief summary of Ashcroft's career, the process behind choosing a commencement speaker and students' views on the decision. Then the forum was opened to debate from former graduates and faculty, graduating seniors and current students and faculty.

James Guffey, professor of mathematics and president of the Faculty Senate, said he supports the idea of honorary degrees.

"The Faculty Senate back in 2000 had a resolution that supported the notion of honorary degrees," Guffey said. "[The resolution] recognized what it can be good for and useful for but that does not specify any sort of process."

Guffey said a process for nomination and confirmation had not been established and was left up to the Board of Governors, who decided to establish a committee.

"There is no process, which at this point, says it is supposed to go to the Faculty Senate to be approved," Guffey said. "People may not be happy [with] how it went, but that is two different issues."

Guffey said they only have conferred one honorary degree before.

"It is going to take a little time for us to figure out how this best works and operates for us with our history, our culture

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and our way of doing things," Guffey said. "It is going to take some conversation to do that."

Guffey said this is rather new for the University.

"We have a start," Guffey said. "I think there may well be some suggestions for changes, [but] where the suggestions go and how exactly we choose to proceed with those has not been part of the campus conversation yet."

Sophomore Chris Steinauer, a member of the panel, said the students at the forum amazed him.

"It really got the ball rolling on some other things to share our discontent," Steinauer said. "This has been completely run by a very organized group of dissatisfied students."

Senior Andrew McCall, member of the panel, said he was encouraged by the outcome of the forum.

"I really feel like this man does not in any way represent the values we ostensibly hold," McCall said. "I think this University is above what is going on right now."

McCall said their best plan would involve holding up newspapers instead of applauding during Ashcroft's speech and his reception of the degree.

"We want to find a strategy that will demonstrate our disagreement while being respectful of the accomplishments of every one of those graduates and their families for putting them through a Truman degree," McCall said.

Future plans for the process of selecting someone for an honorary degree were discussed at the forum.

"There have been a lot of proposals concerning how the process should be changed in general," McCall said. "What the students have been most concerned about is addressing the immediate situation of a week and a half from today."

McCall said of the proposed ideas was to have both the Student and Faculty Senate vote on the proposed honorary degrees rather than just the Board of Governors.

Graduating senior Nicole Sharp spoke during the discussion.

"I am surprised about the overall lack of communication about this decision before it was made," Sharp said. "This isn't what our campus supports and goes against what I want to do with my life."

Sharp said she was embarrassed about the speaker situation.

"The values of the University and the things that are stressed in Residence Life, the classroom, the mission statement and recruiting are not being supported at the end of the year," Sharp said. "The congratulation to the seniors - the people that have gone through this the last four years and supported and maintained this ideal and developed this community that Truman students as a whole support so very much - are being sent off with such a contradictory figure."

Graduating senior James Lang, former president of the College Democrats, said he thought the forum went well.

"I understood the grievances of everybody, and I shared those grievances," Lang said. "This was botched from the beginning - there were systematic errors in how this was put together. The unfortunate thing is that this is how it's going to be. There's no changing it."

Lang said he is interested in what Ashcroft has to say.

"I think we've done what we had to do," Lang said. "While there is a need for an appropriate response to protesting the symbol that Ashcroft is and his relationship to this University. It needs to be done with the thoughts and considerations of the entire class itself."

Graduating senior Sally Hertz also spoke during the discussion.

"I felt that the people who came represented a good diversity of views of why Ashcroft should not receive an honorary diploma and for many people also why he should not speak," Hertz said. "It would have been even more interesting had there been more pro-Ashcroft people there."

Alumnus Steve Baldwin had strong feelings against awarding Ashcroft a degree.

"For the last 28 years, I've been washing toilets and cleaning vomit, but nothing has disgusted me more than giving [Ashcroft] a degree," Baldwin said.