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ATIO GIRL TO GUY R
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USM responds to cuts Samantha Schott Executive Editor
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ESK FROM THE D
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By SGA’s Heather Murray Hey students! Let’s talk, shall we? My name is Heather Murray, and I’m the executive director of student relations for SGA.
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As details of Monday’s announcement sink in, faculty and students are disappointed to learn how professors and programs have been affected. Chair of the history department Phyllis Jestice said she will join the department of foreign languages to appeal the termination of tenured Latin and Greek professor Mark Clark, who has taught at USM for 30 years. “Instruction in Latin and Greek is absolutely indispensable for advanced study in several fields of history,” she said, “and Dr. Clark’s Latin and Greek program is a very impressive tribute to his dedication and hard work.” Jestice said, too, that Clark’s classes are “enormously popu-
lar.” Clark currently teaches 139 students in his five Latin classes. In the spring he teaches Christianity and the Roman Empire and Ancient Greeks, along with others. He also directs a fair number of honors theses, independent studies and master’s theses in history, Jestice said. After his class on Tuesday, junior Latin student Barbara McClendon said, “Dr. Clark is a scholar who has done a multitude of research and been recognized for his work. Go to the foreign language website and read his bio – or better yet, have a conversation with him – and decide for yourself whether this is a professor that our university needs to lose.” “It’s hard to imagine a real university without instruction in Latin and Greek,” Jestice said. “And there’s something truly horrifying about firing tenured professors. I’m not sure students
realize how different this can be from just losing a job. We work for years, sometimes decades, to reach tenure, and with it the expectation of a job.” Despite her disappointment in the loss of the Latin and Greek program, Jestice said the administration went about the cutting process the right way, drawing in faculty, staff and students to provide input. She said, however, that the outcome seems uneven. “It feels like the College of Arts and Letters was hit disproportionately hard, especially considering the tuition revenue that classes like Comparative Religion generate for the university. It feels like the administration was hit disproportionately lights, and that athletics continues to demand and get an unfair proportion of the university’s budget.”
Obama: Operation Iraqi Freedom ends
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President Martha Saunders commented on the large number of cuts from the College of Arts and Letters. “The process was never intended to be proportional,” she said. “Instead, the priorities were set given a set of criteria including enrollment, centrality to the mission of the institution and cost, among other things.” Dean of the College of Business Lance Nail said the cut of the Management Information Systems program in his college was a reasonable choice. “The one academic program that has been slated for elimination in the College of Business was the most rational choice on the basis of enrollment trends,” he said. “We would have preferred to avoid eliminating the MIS program, but the size of the budget cuts was simply too large to avoid cutting academic programs.”
NATIONAL
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Volume 95 Issue 5
President Barack Obama speaks at Xavier University in New Orleans, to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010.
Ashton Pittman Printz Writer Tuesday night, President Obama addressed the nation to announce the end of the United States’ combat mission in Iraq. The address was broadcast live
from the Oval Office — the same desk where President Bush announced the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom more than seven years ago. In the address, Obama maintained a somber yet hopeful demeanor. “I know this historic moment comes at a time of great uncertainty for many Americans,” he
said. “We’ve now been through nearly a decade of war. We’ve endured a long and painful recession. And sometimes in the midst of these storms the future that we’re trying to build for our nation — a future of lasting peace and long-term prosperity — may seem beyond our reach.”
Obama reminded the nation of the many hardships the nation has faced since the war began. Obama said, too, he is “incredibly proud” of the service and sacrifice of the men and women in the armed forces and of their families. He listed their accomplishments in Iraq, from bringing down the regime of Saddam Hussein to protecting the Iraqi people and to fighting terrorist insurgents. “So tonight,” he said, “I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.” Obama said that the ending of combat operations was part of the fulfillment of his campaign promise to end the war in Iraq. In February, Obama announced a plan to bring all combat brigades home. Since he took office, nearly 100,000 troops have been brought home from Iraq. Although the combat brigades have all returned home, 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq for purposes of securing the country as it forms a new government.
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