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VOLUME LXXX ISSUE II
‘FREEDOM OF SPEECH?’ Oswego State named a top 10 “Worst School for Free Speech” by activist group Ryan Deffenbaugh Editor-in-Chief rdeffenbaugh@oswegonian.com Oswego State was named a top 10 “Worst College for Free Speech in 2013” by the Foundation for Individual Rights through a Huffington Post article in December. The list, which also included Harvard University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Syracuse University last year, ranked mostly public colleges and universities, but also included private universities that promise students free speech. “The State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego) earns its rightful place on this list for nonsensically suspending a student who asked rival hockey coaches for their thoughts about his school’s coach in order to complete a class assignment,” FIRE president Greg Lukianoff wrote in the article. Oswego State President Deborah Stanley said she was disappointed to hear about the ranking, adding that the student suspension FIRE referred to took place in 2012 and was an “isolated incident.” “It’s such a misrepresentation of who we are and what we stand for,” Stanley said.
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Alex Myers situation The event described in the list happened in October 2012. Oswego State journalism student Alex Myers, who was at Oswego State through an exchange program from Australia, was suspended over an email he had sent as part of a class assignment. “Put simply, the Alex Myers case was one of the worst cases of campus censorship and punishment of student expression that we saw in 2013,” Azhar Majeed, director of FIRE’s Individual Rights Education Program, said in an email. Myers contacted three hockey coaches in the Central New York area to ask questions for a feature on men’s hockey coach Ed Gosek. He identified himself by saying, “My name is Alex Myers, I work for the Office of Public Affairs at SUNY Oswego.” Myers was actually an intern at the time for the Public Affairs office, but the email was for a class and not within his duties as a public affairs intern. Myers asked the coaches three questions related to their interaction with Gosek, and then signed off by asking the coaches to “Be as forthcoming as you like, what you say about Mr. Gosek does not have to be positive.” Myers would later say to an offended coach that he was trying to make it clear he wasn’t writing a “puff piece.”
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Campus committees hunt for student involvement Stephen Borgna Contributing Writer news@oswegonian.com While Oswego State has 31 standing committees with reserved seats for students, many struggle for student participation. The committees cover a wide range of topics on campus, from student safety to even a committee on committees. This trend comes despite the committees’ value for student participation. Nobody gets turned away. Even if a committee doesn’t have anymore student seats
available, students eager to participate can often find a way to get involved. “I’m always interested in talking to students,” said Joan Carroll, associate professor of accounting and chair of the Faculty Assembly at Oswego State. “I will always try to help students get matchedup and work with student associations to find the right match.” Not only do committees value student participation, professors say students can gain valuable experience being a member. However, involvement is still lacking. Oswego State faculty active in university
committees say there are several reasons for low student membership. According to John Kane, professor of economics and a member of the Committee of Learning and Teaching at Oswego State, it’s often hard for students to attend meetings. “Students have a lot of classes going on, times are usually inconvenient,” Kane said. Carroll said that there is “no benefit in assessing blame” on students for not being more involved in school committees, pointing out that Student Association of-
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ten appoints students to various seats. According to Carroll, there should be more information available to students— another reason why there’s no need for assessing blame. “Students often aren’t aware of their opportunity to participate,” Carroll said. “There are not very good mechanisms to get information out there,” Kane said. John Shaffer, director of ARTswego, Oswego State’s performing arts program,
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