To the Editor:
As a former faculty member and department chair, I have commended the tireless efforts of Deans Nygaard, Lamberti and Shelley in remaking the College of Education into a school that enhanced Butler’s reputation as a leader in training teachers and as a contributor to higher education.
As a father of a daughter who majored in elementary education and currently is a successful first grade teacher, I marveled at the quality of her education provided by her highly motivated, knowledgable professors. Also as a father, I am dismayed and unnerved at the thought of my daughter taking a night class at CTS, a building with a large cross on its side and then having to walk at 10 p. m. in the dead of winter back to her residence hall or to the Butler apartments. As a concerned father, I would have had to think twice about sending my daughter to Butler rather than to another in-state school. Have students even been consulted about this potential move and how it might effect their lives?
As a former Collegian faculty advisor, I am appalled that Dean Shelley declined an interview, and instead issued a statement. In my 33-year association with the Collegian, no reporter, to my knowledge, was ever told by a faculty member, administrator, or staff member that they declined to be interviewed. Delay yes, decline never. Transparency, mutual sharing of values, and open communications between administrators, faculty, and students have always been featured markers on the path that created the Butler way. Dean Shelley appears to have strayed from that path.
Art Levin
Professor Emeritus
2003 Inductee, Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame