The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 98, No. 50, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 15, 1988 Page: 2 of 36
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CANADIAN HEMPHILL CO.. TEXAS
THURSDAY 15 DECEMBER 1988
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-An ‘incredibility’ gap
T HE CREDIBILITY GAP between the Board of
M Regents at West Texas State University and
the embattled faculty of that institution continues
to widen.
When Nolon Henson, chairman of the Regents,
didn’t like the report from Faculty Senate Presi-
dent Gary Byrd at the May meeting of the Regents,
he expressed his displeasure by refusing to allow
the faculty representative to report to the Regents
at the August and November meetings. Henson
chargedthat Byrd was “not creditable” and didn’t
represent the majority of the WT faculty.
Dr. Byrd called for a vote of confidence from his
faculty colleagues, and got it, overwhelmingly...an
81 percent confidence vote from 84 percent of the
full-time faculty...in balloting closely supervised
by a board made up of people outside the
University: Marty Hamrick, director of the Metho-
dist Student Center, Sister Hillary Decker of the
Catholic Student, and Randall County Clerk LeRoy
Hutton...and one faculty member, Assistant
Professor of Political Science James Calvi. A
representative of the Administration was invited to
take part in the counting of ballots but declined.
Dr. Byrd received 133 votes of confidence, 28 of
“no confidence” and three abstentions...a vote
which makes the Faculty Senate President about as
uke (Canadian
RECORD
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BEN EZZELL..........................Editor
NANCY EZZELL...................... Editor
LAURIE BROWN Advertising Manager
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cy M. Ezzell. POSTMASTER Send address
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“credible” as a faculty representative as one is
likely to get.
The Board of Regents has consistently disre-
garded faculty opinion from the outset of the
debate which was touched off more than a year ago
by the faculty’s own overwhelming vote of “no
confidence” in University President Dr. Roach.
The credibility gap widened last Spring when a
special investigating committee appointed by the
Regents conducted a thorough investigation of the
situation at the University and confirmed the
assertion of the protesting faculty that “academic
freedom” was non-existent under the Roach
administration.
The Regents didn’t like that verdict, either, and
rejected it publicly at great length while trying
unsuccessfully to keep the content of the report
under wraps.
So the battle lines are clearly drawn. The
Regents are solidly behind President Roach, a
leader of their own choosing, and the faculty
remains solidly opposed to him. But the faculty is
the backbone of the University...as the faculty is
the backbone of any university...and without its
teachers the University could not exist as an
institution of learning.
The Regents, on the other hand, are political
appointees of a Governor who has neither interest
nor concern for the University at Canyon, and form
a governing board which refuses to hear any
arguments but its own and appears to be willing to
let the institution be destroyed rather than yield to
reason.
We cannot understand why Dr. Roach himself
wants to continue in a position which he obviously
is unable to handle. Without a teaching faculty, he
has no real university to direct. Since he is
apparently unable and unwilling to work with the
University faculty, and is powerless to remove
most of them who are tenured, he is in effect a-
President with an empty portfolio.
Leadership starts at the top. It demands mutual
respect...a quality which is obviously missing on
the WT campus. There is obviously a “credibility
gap” as Regents Chairman Nolon Henson called it,
but it goes far beyond the President of the Faculty
Senate. Chairman Henson himself is incredible...
so is University President Ed Roach...and so are
the handful of hard-headed and hard-hearted men
and women who make up that appointed Board of
Regents.
The “credibility gap” is itself incredible.
w ofthe.
went
BY BEN EZZELL
A lot of parents, here and elsewhere, apparently object to having
their children exposed to MTV on television cable systems. The
principal objection, 1 am told, is the lyrics...loaded with sexual
innuendo; or worse, not veiled by innuendo at all...just the plain
un-vamished language of the gutter at times. I wouldn’t know about
that. Just thirty seconds of the music itself is enough to turn me
off...my ears aren’t sharply-enough tuned to pick out the lyrics.
However, even with my aging and arthritic wrists, 1 am able to
reach and twist the channel selector and take care of the problem
promptly...or to flip the switch which takes care of it permanently...
and presto! the problem doesn’t exist on my television set.
I can sympathize with parents of children who object to their
youngsters being exposed to the sort of programming represented by
MTV, although I’m not sure that it’s any worse than a lot of other
television programming these days...but whatever happened to
family rules and family discipline and to family responsibilities for
guidance and training? I am not sympathetic at all to the Idea of
censorship, governmental or otherwise, which is the remedy usually
invoked in these cases.
I am somewhat troubled by the remedy suggested by the local
television cable system, which obviously recognizes the existence of a
problem and advertises regularly on its own service channel that for a
$20 fee it will install a “lock” on individual cable connections to block
out MTV.
Somehow that seems like putting the shoe on the wrong
foot...adding injury to insult, as it were...to charge subscribers a
healthy monthly fee for cable service and then charge them
additionally to get rid of a part of it that they don’t want.
But 1 don’t question the company’s legal right to do it...just the
insensitivity to public relations. MTV wouldn’t be on the cable
offering if the company didn’t think there was a demand for it, and a
minority who object shouldn't be allowed to censor something the
majority want...the cable service is, after all, a public utility. But
installing a block without charge for those few subscribers who don’t
want the objectionable service might be simple good public relations
policy for the cable company, unless the demand became
overwhelming...in which case the cable company might find it good
business to remove the program entirely.
There’s a lot of Television programming these days which I
wouldn't have wanted my own children to be exposed to when they
were young, and a lot of it, for that matter, that I think sensible adults
shouldn't expose themselves to...but I wouldn’t want to set myself up
as the Censor to decide what programs should be allowed and what
programs should be barred from broadcasting...and I wouldn’t want
you to have that power either. Freedom of choice, like freedom of
thought and the freedom to read, are basic individual rights.
Television does pose special problems for families these days
which didn’t exist before the electronic age. Television is
insidious...it comes into the home, into the privacy of the family, and
it tends to dominate the attention...but it doesn’t come in uninvited.
Neither does the cable connection which expands its outreach. No law
requires the presence of either.
And every television set I’ve ever seen comes equipped with a dial
which controls the selection of programs, and with an on/off switch
which can cancel them all. Censorship of broadcasting, or of the cable
companies, is not a substitute for family discipline and family
guidance, and the remedy for unacceptable programming is always
close at hand.
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Ezzell, Ben & Ezzell, Nancy. The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 98, No. 50, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 15, 1988, newspaper, December 15, 1988; Canadian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth520210/m1/2/?rotate=270: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hemphill County Library.