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2007
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December 12th, 2007
Open Letter to the Faculty Council
Students File Formal Grievance Against Prof. Danny Cassidy
Best-selling Author, Won 2007 American Book Award for How the Irish Invented Slang
[The authors ask that this letter
be forwarded widely. In an appended
email, Prof. Daniel Cassidy tells a student “pog mo thoin” which means
“kiss my ***” in Irish. Nice way to write to the students,
professor!–Ed.]
View as PDF: Open Letter to the Faculty Council
12/11/07 Formal Grievance against Prof. Cassidy with emails from Cassidy
An open letter, to the Faculty Council of the New College of California,
View as PDF: Open Letter to the Faculty Council
12/11/07 Formal Grievance against Prof. Cassidy with emails from Cassidy
An open letter, to the Faculty Council of the New College of California,
We want to take this time to tell
you our story and to make a case for
change at the New College of California, based on our experience, our
research, our analysis, and our hope. Some of what we have to say will
be difficult to hear, but we hope that you understand that we speak
from a place of great love for radical education and genuine
transformation. We ask you to have the patience to hear us out.
This summer, when both of us were
traveling in Mexico, we heard the
news that marked the beginning of the most difficult period of our time
at this school: our entire program, our fragile little community, had
been broken up. Railroaded out of recognizable existence, our program
had exploded with the indignant resignations of our directors and the
simultaneous resignation, in protest, of almost the entire student body
of the Activism and Social Change (ASC) MA program. We were online
every day, communicating with our professors and colleagues, trying to
find out what was going on.
At that time, during the first
week in June, Media Studies alumnus Ian
Elwood set up a riseup.net group to talk about the problems and changes
at the school. On this list of about 100 New College community members,
our entire department, students and faculty, were repeatedly attacked
by messages from an anonymous source. Of course we were horrified to
receive these disgusting emails, and we were shocked when we found out
that they came from a faculty member. But now we understand the history
that makes these seemingly insane communications make sense. We
highlight these emails now, because they openly state the real feeling
of hostility against our excellent program that is more quietly, but
still hurtfully, expressed by many members of the New College
community.
ASC MA and BA program co-directors
Helene Vosters and Rachael Stryker
led our program through the contentious fall 2006 semester, during the
revelations about school founder Jack Leary. These events hit some
members of our department, and our larger community, with the pain
perhaps only understandable by those who have worked hard in their
lives to overcome, and struggle against, rape and sexual abuse. Not
Leary himself, but the school’s denial of responsibility to share this
history, inspired people across the school who joined the voices of
abuse survivors, determined to act against silence, for justice, and
for positive change in every forum: inside the school, inside the city,
inside the country, and in the rest of the world.
Read entire letter and appended emails
Read entire letter and appended emails
Our six requests:
• Help us to process our
grievance (using a neutral outside arbiter)
against a professor who sent us hatemail
• Faculty/admin: publish a letter of concern about Father Leary • ASC MA program and Michael McAvoy: publish a written apology for all ASC MA students.
• The swift application of structures of accountability—including a prompt grievance process with the possible results clearly stated
• Faculty must be empowered to act autonomously from the administration of the school
• The former executive council of the college, and their closest allies—because of their long history of abusing power—should be dismissed from participation at the school, and should not have influence here in the future. To us, this means that none of them should have any financial dealings here, as employees, or as donors, and they should not sit on any boards or committees.
• Faculty/admin: publish a letter of concern about Father Leary • ASC MA program and Michael McAvoy: publish a written apology for all ASC MA students.
• The swift application of structures of accountability—including a prompt grievance process with the possible results clearly stated
• Faculty must be empowered to act autonomously from the administration of the school
• The former executive council of the college, and their closest allies—because of their long history of abusing power—should be dismissed from participation at the school, and should not have influence here in the future. To us, this means that none of them should have any financial dealings here, as employees, or as donors, and they should not sit on any boards or committees.
Category Danny Cassidy, New College of California | No Comments
December 12th, 2007
Submissions and Comments
Updated
Dec. 21, 2007
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Category New College of California | No Comments
If you cannot log into your account, or prefer not to create an account, submit your article, announcement, letter to the editor, or editorial by filling out this form. We have an open editorial policy. We don’t expect our contributors to be members of SSOS, or to necessarily agree with our goals. Opposing views are welcomed. Stopsilence.net is participatory journalism.
Category New College of California | No Comments
December 12th, 2007
New College Community Forum Now Online
Student Zakaree has created an independent online forum for all New College community members. The URL is http://newcollegecommunity.freeforums.orgCategory New College of California | No Comments
December 12th, 2007
All School Council Meeting Fri. Dec. 14
All School Council
December 14th, 2007
3-6pm, Rm 4
End of the Semester Report
Where are we now?
Where are we going?
The Student Council invites all members of the New College Community to come together for an end of term gathering to recognize each other after a severely troublesome semester, to discover where we are in terms of the WASC report and the steps we are going to take to respond. We could all use clarification on important issues such as: financial aid, registration, class schedules, enrollment, the WASC report, structural re-organization, new president…
Category New College of California | No Comments
Stop Systems of Silence © 2007 All Rights Reserved.
December 14th, 2007
3-6pm, Rm 4
End of the Semester Report
Where are we now?
Where are we going?
The Student Council invites all members of the New College Community to come together for an end of term gathering to recognize each other after a severely troublesome semester, to discover where we are in terms of the WASC report and the steps we are going to take to respond. We could all use clarification on important issues such as: financial aid, registration, class schedules, enrollment, the WASC report, structural re-organization, new president…
Category New College of California | No Comments
Stop Systems of Silence © 2007 All Rights Reserved.