Higher education is a great thing, but sometimes you wonder what lessons are intended to be taught.
Yesterday the President at the University of Maryland overrode the faculty senate and said there would continue to be an invocation delivered at the College Park commencement ceremonies. In one of the more clueless responses to his decision:
Elise Miller-Hooks, chair-elect of the senate and an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, said: “It’s pretty rare that [Mote] would do something like this and choose to go against the recommendation of the senate. He must have strong reasons for that.”
Reasons like tradition and commonsense?
The faculty senate came out against the invocation because “many people on the large and diverse campus felt excluded or marginalized” by the practice.
Apparently the Faculty has no such problems with University groups showing pornography on campus. I have not seen where they have felt a need to comment much less take a position on the proposed screening of Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge, which led to a huge kerfluffle over free speech rights, state funding, and was ultimately shown only in part as part of a discussion of free speech and pornography.
I don’t know that one can assume that they will shortly endorse the idea of showing the movie at commencement in place of an invocation, but given where their priorities seem to be focused I shouldn’t be surprised if it happens.
I guess I got my Old Poot card years ago, but I am always amazed by what college faculties feel they have a duty to fight for and what they have a duty to ignore…and how they can rationalize sometimes as being educational.
