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Contact:  Kevin P. Kodish

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Thursday, June 1, 2006

WITH HR 177 HEARINGS CONCLUDED, APSCUF LOOKS AHEAD TO THE FREE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS

HARRISBURG – Now that the hearing process required by last year’s passage of House Resolution 177 (HR 177) has come to a conclusion, the association representing the nearly 6000 faculty members and coaches at Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities believes it is time for everyone to return the focus to where it belongs – student learning.

 “Representative Gibson Armstrong’s resolution was a bad idea, plain and simple.  It was based on anecdotes that, for the most part, could not be substantiated and was a waste of time and resources, State APSCUF President Pat Heilman said.

Burrell Brown, State APSCUF’s vice president and one of the faculty members offering testimony during the long hearing process, echoed Heilman’s sentiments.

            “HR 177 was a prime case of a solution in search of a problem – a problem which students, faculty and administrators all agreed did not exist,” Brown observed.  “I would hope that with the recent defeat of its prime sponsor (Armstrong), that this resolution can finally be marked DOA (dead on arrival).”

Before the hearing process began, Heilman cited the real issues facing public higher education in Pennsylvania, including funding, and questioned why a Select Committee had never been formed to address that problem. Instead, she said, the Legislature “creates a new expenditure for a highly questionable endeavor such as this.”

APSCUF MEMBERS REFLECT ON HEARINGS

            In addition to Brown, several other APSCUF members testified at the HR 177 hearings.  Professor Ken Mash of East Stroudsburg University noted the failure of the HR 177 proponents to accomplish anything meaningful.

            “Those who asserted these hearings were necessary bore the burden of proving that there was a real problem.  They have simply failed to do that,” Mash said.  “Pennsylvania’s universities remain vibrant marketplaces of ideas.”

Professor Kurt Smith of Bloomsburg also failed to see anything positive from the hearings.

   “In aligning himself with Mr. David Horowitz’s national campaign to have his Academic Bill of Rights made into law, Rep. Armstrong and those who cosponsored HR177 cost the taxpayers of Pennsylvania tens of thousands of dollars—money that could have been better spent on scholarships or grants for students,” Smith remarked.

“There has been absolutely no evidence gathered by the Select Committee that supports the initial allegations of a widespread conspiracy to abuse conservative students and to indoctrinate the rest. Many of the cases originally referred to by Rep. Armstrong, which he claimed on the House floor justified the making of HR177, have been shown to be false—they simply never happened. And yet, he and certain members of the Select Committee continue to assert the allegations.”

Kevan Yenerall, a professor at Clarion University, echoed many of his colleague’s sentiments, but also found a positive in the process.

“As discouraging as this taxpayer-funded charade has been, it has been heartening to witness the wisdom and calm exhibited by leaders like Representatives Lawrence Curry and Dan Surra, who suspected from the outset that these hearings were ill-conceived and baseless,” Yenerall observed.

“These noble public servants have shed light, not heat, on this manufactured political hot potato, and are to be commended for their leadership.”

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Kevin P. Kodish

Director of Communications

APSCUF

319 North Front Street

PO Box 11995

Harrisburg, PA 17108-1995

Phone:  800-932-0587, ext. 6

Fax: 717-236-1883

email:  kkodish@apscuf.org