Let the Sun Shine In

There are cracks beginning to show in the façade erected by the administration at UNCG. They will want you to think that those cracks are damaging the foundation, but they are not. Those cracks are opening up the layers of false exterior that has been placed on our campus and the more they widen, the more the sun will be able to shine in and illuminate the campus. The larger the fissures in this exterior pastiche, the greater the strength of the light that will sanitize the darkest corners that have been collecting and supporting the moldy corruption of private interests over public good.

Don’t be fooled by the argument that you are damaging UNCG by helping to clear away the cobwebs and the dirt. It is time now, more than ever, to put our shoulders to the wheel and tear apart the architecture of bullying and corruption that was built brick by brick by appropriating our labor and standing on our backs.

Across the state, North Carolinians are realizing that higher education in our state is under full frontal assault. Here at UNCG we’ve been seeing the damage that can be inflicted when the interests of education are dismissed and the administration works with shrouded mechanisms to disenfranchise the staff, faculty, students, and community members of the university.

We are continually losing good people, some through dramatic attacks such as those made against the UNCG3, others in desperation and self-defense, and still more quietly finding greener pastures.

Then there are those who are finding that they have created an atmosphere to hot even for their own liking; who leave the damage they have done in their wake to be cleaned up by others.

The absolute disdain and dismissal with which the UNCG community is viewed by the upper administration is clear when Brady sends a message (to some) saying that she values the contributions that Paul Mason has made to university relations at UNCG. What contribution was this? The decimation of a department followed by jumping ship? However, it is most likely true. What he has done, and what others like him are doing right now on campus, is representative of what our administration has come to value.

Now, Charlie Maimone has shown his true colors. The faculty senate passed a resolution in support of a more open search for our next leader – a measure largely designed to prevent a repetition of Brady’s hire and to help us build trust from the ground up – but Maimone specifically voted for a completely closed search. The faculty voiced their desire to let a little more light shine in on the search and Susan Safran and the other members of the search committee dismissed this request wholesale and without even the benefit of a discussion.

This is where we are. Members of the UNCG community speak and the Board of Trustees and upper administration no longer even feel the need to pretend they are listening. They operate with immunity and in complete liberty to continually ignore the voices of the people who make up the university.

UNCG’s administration and members of the Board of Trustees are violating our university’s core values:

Where is the inclusiveness?

Where is the collaboration?

Where is the transparency?

They make a mockery of these terms and expect us to celebrate it.

We are silenced again and again by demonstrations of raw power – the ability to move ahead with an agenda no matter the objections. This isn’t about not always getting what we want. This is about never even truly being a part of the decision making process.

We are tired of being patronized.

We are tired of being lied to.

We are tired of being excluded.

It’s not the outcome, it’s the process. When upper administration is exhorting those below them to control the faculty, it is the structure of obfuscation that they are trying to protect. For anyone who supports openness and transparency in public institutions, the message is clear: don’t lose heart, don’t lose hope, the cracks are starting to show.

This spring, let’s do some cleaning and the let the sun shine in.

That’s the way to deal with the past while looking to the future.