Left a Premiership an assistant Humanities professor and winner of the 1970-71 College of liberal arts distinguished teacher award was informed of his non reappointment to the university to win the right to be reappointed and instructor has to do something extra-ordinary at the University Paul. D'andrea associate professor and chairman of the humanities program stated and he said pan wasn't a strong priority and the humanities program the tenure and promotion committee reviewed the matter and decided that pain should not be reappointed at that time. Misha pens public comment to the matter was that he did not want it all to become a celebrated case and that he prefers at the matter not be publicized. He felt confident that his creation of courses such as theories of culture science and Humanities and racial thought should receive the visibility.However pain was entitled to raise the question of his non reappointment before the Senate judicial committee and the outrage and concern of a large representation of faculty and students. Encourage me shippan to appeal the decision during the remainder of 1974. There was energy mobilized for support of pain through a letter-writing campaign using the Minnesota daily newspaper as a form for opinion and testimonial as depends high value as a stimulating important teacher in early 1975. The Senate judicial committee met and decided the pain was not entitled to tenure simply by virtue of his length of service. So I'm 13 years as of next June then on February 6th, the Senate Judiciary Committee met again to consider other issues in his appeal of the University's decision the issues of violation of due process and violation of academic freedom. No decision on these matters.This yet been made public. Although the proceedings of the Judiciary Committee are confidential it seems probable that it one or both of those meetings. The primary subject considered would have been the simple one to decide whether pan was a good teacher or not. This is the matter will discuss here today, the legalities and technicalities of the University Senate judicial committee are not for us to consider but the broad and general subject of what kind of professors are teaching. What at our state-supported University is a subject of growing concern not only here but throughout the country the subject can be discussed by us considering today nimisha pen case here with me today are Martin Borgen professor of microbiology at the University of Minnesota Medical School David are brown and endocrinologist in the department of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota medical schools and a Stanley graduate teaching a soap.Get an Afro-American studies and a master's candidate and I'm the American studies program and Kenneth Keller professor of chemical engineering and acting dean of The Graduate School. Well, let's discuss that matter now. What kind of a teacher is Misha pan? First of all, I consider myself qualified to judge what kind of teacher he is. Not only because I've spent a lot of a lot of years teaching myself. But also because I've been intimately involved in his teaching. Perhaps I might say that I've been more intimately involved in his teachings and have them any of the people who have judged his teaching in this recent affair. I took a course of his but he science and Humanities course which for me was a revelation and had a very substantial effect on how I viewed my own daily work of doing science. Iko taught a course with him in the microbiology department where we discussed some philosophical aspects of biology and where Professor pain plated invaluable role in providing a dimension that we as biologists couldn't provide ourselves. So some of what I just said is that I've had contact with him from a teaching point of view. And to repeat what many other people have said he is a superb teacher. He's a unique teacher. and it's extraordinary and ironic that the accusations directed against him bear on his teaching Can we talk some about it? Not the opinion of his teaching but the procedure of his teaching you all taking his classes. Let's talk some about how he teaches what is preparation for a course is like how he does stimulate his students how he handles it. Only what goes on in the classroom. I I likewise have taken his science and Humanities course, but more than what's going on in the classroom has been my association with him outside of the classroom. He's a man who makes himself literally universally available to anyone former students anyone who wishes to discuss with him things that relate on the humanities over very broad since he has been a person who's guided me and my own career who was provided stimulation outside of science directly given me what has been for twelve years the span of my Association. An interesting literature an interest in the philosophy of science and threw him. I've met many other people pray for yet Professor Herbert feigl and directly. Dr. Dworkin. I've met and visit and hope will further be very meaningful associations his preparation. The world is his classroom and it goes on twenty-four hours a day. And his teaching is his his preparation is the way he lives life and he's developed a system of analyzing the world around him and conveying and a very effective and pragmatic way. He's able to deal with abstract subjects, but put them in a very very practical level and I think that particular people who are dealing with science deal with science better having been exposed to his point of view and I see you nodding your head in the affirmative. What can you tell me about his classes patient was Michelle's about 7 years old. I met him as a student and then I worked on several committees with him the Afro-American studies Department the for 1 London, it was from those associations that he began to deal, you know with the idea of developing a course on racial fart. To talk about Misha, you know if my teachers it's kind of hard to be objective about it because I think for me and for other black students, he did what no one else over there probably could have done and that was to give us an interest in the academic world to make it the meaningful place that our old ones tell us that it is that it is a place where people go to search for the truth of their lives and the truth of their environments and then where you know great books are not things that we just study in isolation, but that they are social and political and cultural comments on our lives and so from that Association, I think he opened many doors, which we probably would have loved close the he made it possible for us to engage in dialogue to be willing to explore ideas and to appreciate the the notion that people are not just what they are. Because they are but they are cultural and social and political things that go into making that I think in his classroom the race issue probably at no other place on that University. It was capable of being discussed that people could talk about the night Fighters and jigaboos and all of those kinds of things and then begin to explore know exactly what that meant. Then to put it not just in our own time about to relate it to you know, the cultural continuity of the way people think in the way they develop for me personally. I think that probably if I had not met him I would not have remained at the University my first experiences with it. I was bored frustrated and then thankful for adult his method to he engaged my mind. He forced me to think not just to rely on the shallow rhetoric that came from nowhere and for that I shall always said my respect him because he taught me that the you don't How to rely on Brute Force if there is something Noble about people and it is their mind and that's what you deal with it and you know, that's all I can say about them as far as that's concerned for hours with that's about the gist of it. I think he is my teacher and he is probably one of the only men over there that I can say that about cuz I did learn and I have Incorporated what I learned because that's what he taught me that you Incorporated in your life and they become your truths and you try to leave them. Can I spell with on April 2nd at one of the things that keeps coming up with former students who have related to Mission panas is sort of an Adder enduring Association goes back 12 years. I haven't been in his classroom for 12 years yet. It's an ongoing kind of a thing this man will you run into him in an elevator with the you meet him downtown or do you see what was under any circumstances Senator? He's always your teacher. We've we've all refer to him. That way you come out of the classroom. I'm sure I have very few notes on paper and I miss your pancreas. It's just you. You relate to this man in during late and I think the tragedy of his not being reappointed not being in the campus is a loss of that enduring relationship to all of us the classroom many many teachers who I've had in the past and good teachers, you know, it's come and gone but it's of no consequence when the chorus is over. The final exam is taken the association outside of my own field May well be terminated. But with him, it's a it's a life-long bind and that's the unique and amazing thing. That's why I'm here and why I want to be involved and questioned the use of respected academic materials. I think that's certainly one of the things that's been questioned is whether it goes in accordance with Orthodox formats or not. Then I think Anna has touched on a couple of points which I just like to expand on briefly one is the question of dialogue in his classroom. But Misha uses what is sometimes referred to as a Socratic method the method of teaching is to engage the student it's to ask questions of the student and do not present ideas in any fully formed way. but that instead of pretending ideas in a fully-formed way to make the student develop the idea. It has an important effect of making learning process active in the learning process is fundamentally active so that when you sit in misses class, you can't sit back and absorb information because he doesn't provide it in that form and the other aspect of making it possible to be actively involved is that he approaches it rather homely. He doesn't declaim to the people in his class, but he presents himself as a human being with human frailties and therefore makes it possible for his class to habits frailties and still Express opinions and be part of this developing process of the result is that there is no fixed amount of material that gets covered of the amount of time and said what happens is that the material develops as it does normally in the scholarly process as ideas become formed. one of the things that struck me in the time I sat in his classroom is the fact that the method captures a very essential Pro intellectual problem, and that is that The question of formulating problems. It is almost more difficult in many cases and finding solutions to them. So that one doesn't go in and say I understand what the problem is to start with class a good deal of the time is spent in trying to Define what problems are that? Need to be solved. I need to be thought about that's a very difficult and time-consuming process frequently. If you do a good job in that part of it finding Solutions is relatively simple. That's a technique which he uses. It is normally used but it's been subject criticism of criticism of information to be transmitted in a. Of time and that he's not accomplishing that instead. He's questioning the whole premise even the premise of his course, for example, e teaches a course called science and the amenities he begins the course by asking whether that's really inappropriate dichotomy is that an appropriate split that it one has to deal with and spend quite a lot of time and dealing with that. The titles of the three courses that I'm familiar with series of culture science and Humanities that you mentioned and racial thought are there interesting titles, but they could be empty verbiage. They're rather loose titles. Could you discuss with me? If you see them as as meaningful titles in a practical educational sounds one of one of the strong features about Penn's approach to education has to do With the precisely with that question and has to do with the with his ability to be multidisciplinary. Not there's a funny kind of prejudice at the University which I doubt if many people would admit to but I think exists nevertheless and that is that there are certain things called primary disciplines which are concerned with hard information like the atomic weight of sodium and then there are other areas of the University which attempt to bridge disciplines for called multidisciplinary areas and are viewed by people who consider themselves as hard-nosed academics to sort of soft and mushy not they don't really deal with the hard stuff. I think this is part of the problem with Misha's courses because he does what very few other people at the University does that is he tries to bring areas of knowledge together sciences and Humanities theories of culture history. And Rachel thought and is as a result of that subject to criticism because of the lack of hard information and yet what he's trying to do is a far more difficult tasks and simply reciting the atomic weights of the elements. He's trying to ask the question. How do these things all fit together with each other? The fact is that that kind of an interdisciplinary approach is the reason why universities exist why they don't exist as separate institutes and Institute of agriculture in an Institute of Technology a college of liberal arts could exist on quite separate campuses. If one didn't want to pursue the interactions between them and in fact the the developments all over the university and the developments of newfields all come through what it start out as interdisciplinary areas and develop into new kinds of disciplines the classical disciplines that we identify the university now, we're at one time or another not disciplines that all engineering what is the discipline it was an application of a fundamental science in the same sense of the kinds of developments said that pain has been engaged in are the ones that are troubling people now science and Humanities is not simply a catchy phrase but a very serious kind of question to be raised and it's been raised all over the world in the last 20 years by very reputable Scholars who are trying to understand How these two kinds of Worlds may join what their overlaps are and pens courses filled with great content. They never attempt to do this to handle this kind of field in in a in a simple contemporary fashion science and Humanities Begins by examining the antecedents of the current problems. It goes back to the 19th century dialogues of Huxley and Arnold and develops through with a changing the development of technology in the changing value structure of the world as we moved into the twentieth century until it led to the more current than familiar snow Olivas debates and interchange. They weren't really debates. His development of that idea is really filled with content. It isn't simply a catchy phrase that we talked about an infant rather abstract and empty phrases. Egglettes pink paradoxical about the whole situation is that with Misha pin attempts to do in the classroom in an appropriate way is more or less was being inappropriately done to him as a scientist and being in his classroom and I haven't taken the course and unusual context it having been set up mainly to invite primarily people who work in the Sciences or on the University or are there college campuses and Sciences? He asked us to examine ourselves as scientists often scientists are examined by their peers by other scientists here is a non-scientist examining our values and I think that that has a a very important perspective. He made us look at ourselves as scientists and what we were doing maybe that in the course of reality. He hasn't been concerned with what science is doing now, but perhaps what sign should be doing with science will be doing I'm sure many issues that are contemporary now for example ecology or the falls Dream of technology which 12 years ago when I was involved born in Vogue now are invoke and was interesting about his chorus is that in contrast to the chemistry. I learned 12 or 15 years ago, which isn't good anymore with Misha pain was saying then now is good. And what could be more practical are we oversimplifying the issues simply by talking about his ability to create and teach a meaningful course. Are there other things that should be considered when a man is put in the position of not receiving a reappointment in spite of the large amount of staff at the University and the student body that have said things very similar to what we've been saying today an over-simplification simply to talk about the about the teaching and the the exclusion from his contribution of scholarship by or at least some called exclusion of scholarship is charged a scholarship takes many forms. One of which is the publication of scholarly papers, which other Scholars read scholarship in the sense of creating new knowledge and new insights can take many forms. One form is the creation of a new course so that instead of publishing a paper on creates a new course and publishes the material to 1 students. That's a very real and a very fundamentally important part of university scholarship. This is what mission does I've watched him create new courses and he doesn't do them. Casually. He has spent years in the preparation of a new course and when I finally emerges it's a piece of scholarship which is contributed by its perpetuity is not in a journal but as David has commented on very eloquently. It's perfect humidity is in terms of the students scholarship nevertheless. publication is one of the ways of communicating scholarship, but not the only way if one in fact Engages in a lot of lecturing across various kinds of departmental lines and that's the way of communicating scholarship. If you talk to your colleagues or subsequent to use those ideas and Publications. That's the way of communicating scholarship is one of the leading Scholars at the University foot notes pain and some articles as having provided the underlying ideas which led to the article so it isn't really an absence of the top scholarship to talk about a short publication list. It says something a narrowness of focus. I think a good pragmatic example is a scientist friend of mine Michael Kohn a very close friend of misery depends at the department of Pediatrics and genetics of the University of Washington Mission. Panda. Got to Michael very interested in the literary works of Nobel Laureate para lagerkvist to wrote in the forties a book called the door. Dr. Cohn subsequently as an authority with Dr. David Smith on the field of dwarfism is probably several dozen important papers in the area dealing with humidor fism. He's also in the process of completing with dr. Robert Grand at the University of compendium of human syndromes dealing with short stature and the book does contain many literary allusions for lagerkvist and corn and I together have sort of gone through the English language literature and Scandinavian literature looking for a mini literary examples of dwarfism instead of just the pure cold-hearted science. Again, this is a form of scholarship of integration of communicating between disciplines that has obvious practical value. Is Misha Pain part and parcel of these courses University are these courses no more to be offered because they are his creation a qualified. Yes. Be particularly interested in their continuous when I asked him specifically whether certain of those courses would be continued. He said to me that that of course would be a decision of the senior faculty and amenities, you know, not only is if Misha pain would leave the university Not only would it be a loss of a teacher be a loss of a student because again, another unique thing about him is that this man in the classroom has can't put it to dialogue Mission learning and these courses are developing and changing. And in the classroom, he is learning as much if not more than any student. He's obviously being touched by other personalities that are in the class for all of us here if touched on their personal relationships that have gone on Fear Factor earlier at whatever level the same thing is true of the racial talk plans. I had it the first two sections of it when he first started. I think it must have been around 70 and then I've continued to come back to the class, but it's amazing how many new things he is added to it since its beginning in each time. It's as if I'm taking it for the first time each time. The material is becoming even more integrated. I don't see how anybody else could teachers accept him. I mean, yeah, they could go through the dialogues, but it wouldn't be the way he teaches it because he teaches you to read and you don't just read words as words, but you look at the way they're placed on the page the way they placed in the sentence in the context of the paragraph in the context of the other cultural things that he's pulling, you know into the lecture so that you'll learn how to read all over again. It's very difficult to take other classes and sit there and be spoon-fed and you know, that would be a sad thing to lose because he does teach people to read before we started this discussion. I read a portion of an editorial from the Minnesota daily that made a reference to the great grey mediocrity that creeping feeling on the The Daily Express in fear for the University of Minnesota and the implication being that if you don't watch out to keep The quality of your teachers high that this will happen in our universities the way you've described Misha pan as a teacher he seems to at least in your opinion fit into this category of a very imaginative very creative very important. teachers why did the situation develop if indeed he is that good a teacher. What's happening? What is the motivation for pursuing his 9 appointment? I think the university has to be viewed and all of its complexity and how its decisions are made. It just isn't a very simple thing and I think what we're seeing is exactly the way in which subdivision into small compartments can sometimes hurt the the hole in a very bad way. What we've really concentrated on is Misha's influence throughout the entire University and the University at large and in great numbers has come to Mission support dozens and dozens of faculty and hundreds of students of indicated support for him. None of those people appear to be and they narrow group of people who are responsible for making this decision instead a recommendation to terminate. The mission was made by a small group of senior faculty in a single program called the humanities program and the argument has been made too many of us that although the program is essentially interdisciplinary and although many of us have learned from Misha talk with him engaged in scholarly discourse with him that we are not in the position to make judgments about his capability that that judgment has to be made by a small group of people who for one reason or another may not the particularly want to reappoint pain and their their reasons. They may not be dishonest reasons, but I think are related to their own goals and their own sense of what they want to see done in their program. And that doesn't necessarily relate to the interests of the University wants that group is made the decision then it goes through a structure which appears on the surface Democratic but it is not clear that the issues or ever heard out again, or that there ever any value judgments made any other point that in fact, we aren't going through a process which involves budget which involves of reinforcement of previous decisions which involves judgement on the basis of data that are entirely peripheral to what pain they represent and then involve what I guess has to be called Stonewall at once said the unit has made its decision. We have to back its right to make that decision. So I don't think there's a conspiracy involved here. I think it's the fact that there isn't and there's never been an opportunity for broad hearing how Affects the university and a proper voice for those in the rest of the University of might have an opinion then indeed. What is the place of all this material that I have here in my hand copies of letters from students copies of letters from staff that reflection of the general community of the University that you referred to that. He's a fine teacher that he should be reappointed are those cries in the wilderness to my knowledge not a single one of us who wrote is ever even been given the courtesy of a response and acknowledgement of the existence of our letters include basis of the response of the non-response that the university know something that we don't One can only conclude that there is some sort of information which Bears on the pen case. Which has not been revealed. And if so, there has been no attempt to confronted examine it. cross-examining the only logical conclusion to draw from the response of the university and ignoring is overwhelming mass of favorable support for Pat has been that there is something lurking in the bushes which they will not reveal and when you say they I'm not familiar with the whole process that is going on. Although I know the matter is before the Senate Judiciary Committee it is that not a body that could or should respond to your correspondence or the influence you feel the students in the staff might have how does a private citizen find out what they are considering prior? Cases which have been judged by this committee prior protests or prior matters brought by faculty are not available to an attorney representing a major pain afterwards if attorney wanted to find out what had happened in the past cases so that he could get some sense of what the protocol is what the procedure is what the values are there used. That's not available one may not see those one may not know one guy on a panel that one may not see the information pertaining to Misha's case until I think go see your chairman of the panel put it until a faculty member dies. So there's a peculiar situation where there's there's no precedent to be examined. But so is not to paint this unit. The the Senate Judiciary Committee has a big bad secret Clique operating they have a legitimate charge to consider this and is that not so the function is pretty much you don't like the function of the cords and then the case of K in kafka's novel The Trial. I mean, you know, it's more than just make sure the man it's almost as if Mission now embodies the university and then it's academic rights of the rights of its members or to pursue other disciplines in the fashion the that they have developed in which will begin to stimulated and motivate their students. It's more than just make sure it's the whole idea of what what it means to be a teacher or whether we really are about accumulating your bibliography so that you know, not even a man to reading a hundred years whether or not we're going to continue with the right the esoteric document so that only our colleagues can read if they're really up on everything. I think that's a part of the question to you know, why is it not possible to expand the concept of publishing? Why can't the David and I You don't represent the an article that mission has published why can't the things so that I have gleaned up from studying your Elliott's what is it through his notes on civilization on cultural. What if it wasn't an in my cruise is r e definition of culture. Why cannot that be an article the way in which you know, I learned to read those documents. I think the university is attempting to recreate it's mythical past of this Noble, you know, pure thing that sits above few no Humanity in Civilization and where we just deal with abstractions and all theories. In fact, really go nowhere except, you know, among our own little groups and I think good Mission send if you want to put it like that the why he has been cast in the role of czolgosz that he did to make his discipline real that he did to say the Aristotle probably still affects our Consciousness that the somewhere along the line. Maybe the ideas of surrounding women did come from his definition of them as you know, A retarded or deformed men or perhaps it the notion of the Barbarian in some way. You did become the black man that did become, you know, the Asian or the Indian. So I think that that's as soon as that he tried to make it the real though. You tried to show us where we do. In fact, you don't have you know something to ask about culture as it has been given to us and we have to understand that in order to make changes. So I wouldn't I wouldn't accuse the Senate judicial Committee of not trying to proceed to resolve the issues. But I had a strange experience with respect to it. That did disturb me. I received a letter from Mr. Tinkham who it is it a downtown attorney hired by the university to defend itself. In this case, which said that I had written the letter that could have been used in the decision to terminate pain. It went on to say that if I objected that letter would not be given to the judicial committee to consider. Basically, that's what the letter said. I'm paraphrasing it. The only implication I could draw from that is that if someone had written a letter accusing pain of any number of things we don't know what he could have written to Mr. Tank him and said that letter can't be released while since one of the charges involved here is one of what kinds of accusations may have been made unknown accusations against Penn. How free is the judicial committee to act if in fact this information isn't going to be released. Defender. Contested my feeling is that that in itself cast such doubt on the on the proceedings to continue that I'm not sure that with all the Goodwill in the world. The committee is able to make those judgments. Are we talkin about malice? Are we talkin about villains? Are we talkin about bad guys and good guys. What are we really talking about? What what is this issue really about I think one of the issues is a definition of what is the University or what is an educational institution and I think one of the tragedies and some of the non specificity we're all using released of the fact that it really hasn't been defined and perhaps it shouldn't be like that ourselves as a group representing part of the University have a concept that we're in agreement with and it seems to be at odds with what the judicata authority on the part of the senate committee has its definition. And here we are both representing are part of the same institution and we can arrive at a definition of what that institution should be and Amisha pain or other people like Misha pen stand threatened by the non specificity. I don't know that it's malice that this man may be suffering and a very benign fashion because those people who are making decisions with his regard like an appreciation of what he's doing or don't even have a firm concept as to what he should be doing. The certain guide rules. We all follow and we all represent different disciplines that has academicians we teach you expected to perform in a classroom in certain ways. We prepare examinations that we grade them. We provide grades. We all carry out research at various levels and we publish these and journals and that we make our living doing this and if we perform this way, we usually succeed we gain our 10-year We don't do this. There aren't any definitions that exist to survive as a scholar and I think that at one level the senate committee is functioning within the very very narrow framework that we've alluded to ride along and and perhaps even in a benign fashion is unable to accept anything that falls outside of that range of accepted scholarly duties. I eat a teacher in the classroom to publish papers. But let's talk. Let's not. Exclude the possibility which I think is very real one that there are personal animosities that there are small jealousies. There are antagonism was involved where we're not Angels where people who happen to be any University. We have the same kinds of abrasive associations with some of our colleagues as anybody else has anywhere else. So you one certainly doesn't want to exclude the possibility that there are people who have been antagonized who are jealous or threatened by Misha pain and that this is reflecting itself. And their academic judgments now, I'm not saying who this is. I'm not specifically referring to anyone but I think it would be unreal to not to assume that this does play Roll, especially with someone who is positive and as forceful a person is Misha is offend people. They will also not stimulate people if we have people like pain teaching or capable of stimulating some individuals are obviously going to offend some others. The question is should we opted for the safe route the person who does neither or opt for for the balance the one that involves both. I think there's another point though that can't be lost and in the whole process and that is given the context of the University which is Which is under some pressure to not expand Beyond its its eyes now under some pressure to even contract and therefore some pressure to hold down the number of tenured positions when faced with a recommendation of this small group The amenities program not to tenure someone it is a very natural thing to say. Well certainly let's not do that. That's always a problem. Anyway, our difficulties are our goal is really the other it's to make sure that we're not tendering too many people. We certainly I think there is any parts of the University expect that administration of the administration is going to take the view that they wanted 10-year more people than the fact that he wants to 10-year Levy tensions in the University even completely without malice. We have to face the possibility that the administration of with limited budgets is not interested in providing more tender than it has to I think another issue we have to realize is that method Mission pain also is a is an ethnic entity miss your pain is a Jewish intellectual at a campus and his views his ideas spray openly and very clearly represent a Jewish intellectual point of view. Be among the first to admit that his scholarly tradition his values represent to 3000 year old Heritage of intellectual feeling this concept. This idea is foreign to many ways of thinking as is Blackness, Chicano indianness and everything else that goes beyond the mainstream and I think it's an issue. We have to appreciate again the question of deliberate malice or whether lack of appreciation in our cultural values life the core of it. I don't know but I think the fact that he is an ethnic entity must somehow be related to what he is as a teacher as a human being as our friend. And other issues we discussed here today, you know, if they're there and I'm not willing to rule out that they aren't I think they are for the most part unconscious kinds of behaviors. Is that have erupted in this process that we see because when you see Misha, I mean like when I look at them, it's it's like looking upon my grandmother. I mean, I just don't see her physical form, but I see her tradition and where she has come from and what she believes in her ideas all of that and then miss you is all of that and then that's what you see and that's what you respond to because you know that he's not afraid of you because he does have you know, that thing in his head that is 3000 years old that is his tradition and that I think you know for most of us at the university the object is to go there and lose that then to enter you know, what this Transcendent the Brotherhood where we are all either scientist. So we'll all mathematicians who all historians and then to do a way, you know, what that side of our consciousness of that side of our imaginations and our intellects that we should bring to our work so that it doesn't become dead and sterols and we all read exactly the same way and I think that can be frightening to people who I insecure or who I'm not talented and made it is so tremendous feeling it to walk into that classroom and to look out on 50 people in to watch them respond to you when you are responding, you know to them. I mean, it's the only example that I can use as a Baptist preacher if he doesn't get a mens that he's not doing anything and the congregation will get rid of him very soon. Well, I mean, it is a religious experience that the teacher I mean you touch people little where no one else can touch them and that's in their heads and if that's all you touch if you can transcend the head into the soul, then you really not teaching them. And so I think that could cause jealousy and fear in and all kinds of things because if I am capable the to read Aristotle and not have Do you know reduce myself to a method in order to read him but to read him as a black woman in to come from that experience and look at him that way will that have caused my interpretation will be different from philosophy has them cuz we have a conflict and we didn't have to recognize that there a cultural perspectives of that are at play there. So yeah, I can see where it would be threatening him because we're supposed to be all the same and then we all depend on mother of the University of from the same perspective what mission says no and she is your mother but then you have to go to her and Alyssa things from her, you know that you want and then you have to make her you don't respond to you in a way that is amenable to both of you and not just from her perspective and I think that's frightening for students to their ass to full Professor. A question most times. They do not have the address and all they can give you a quote from someone else and what you're asking them to do is to create the with the quote and most of them cannot do it and they could put off and you know, I can see if when she's got 500. That's a lot of people who can do that. And then the game is up and then they become human in the podium is just that a poem is like the illusion spring, you know, we all go and drink from it. And then this this time of water pollution, we need that if that water happens to be a little kosher while we've got to swallow it all them. May I at this point make us a reservation the personal and and short-range implications of the issue of of Misha pens. Non reappointment are they will simply one man is going to lose his job and some people are really going to care about that. What are the broader implications the implications for? To Hell and Back Again to the editorial in the daily great gray mediocrity the implications for all of you at the University and for my children at the University in your children. What will I think of you know, they're allowed to get away with Misha the man but I think the idea that mission represents, which is that freedom in the class. I think of if that goes and you know, what's the black students have said to me you will live we allow mission to go then you will go and you know, that's the way I see it. I mean I see him is the tip of an iceberg because the way I run my class students who have had Misha say that I'm a combination of him and myself I use his methods I engaged in the night for some to react to me and I reacted them and it's it's it's good for both of us and then so you know what? I mean? I don't see him, you know, what's an isolated incident at something that's going to go away. I think that the university, you know, like a good scientist that has a specimen that it is seeing how the specimen is reacting. It is seeing how the rest of the institution is reacting to the Spencer. And of course of the other cells are scurrying to protect themselves in the hopes that they will me to these expectations that have not been Define, but what they call excellence and I think as black students and that's black Scholars. So we understand that we are not there in that mythical family of excellence. And so we see it as a beginning if he dies, then we'll see what the rest of us will be injected there with their sermon and then we will go to that's how we see it to the university wants to go back to his old ways. It was to go back to the 40s 30s or however far back in The Mists began and it cannot to its doors are open and we are there and we are demanding that it's chemistry change and so Mich it will not go away because we all miss you and we understand that I think the another aspect of the long-run long-term damage that could be done. It could be done has to do with missions Rowland. Providing a both of curricular and a personal bridge between the sciences and Humanities if one looks at the names of the people who are supporting measure, we certainly at the names of the professors who I was supporting Misha. There's an extraordinary and one might legitimately asked why are all of these scientists involved in an issue that has to do with the humanities professor and has been mentioned a number of times during this discussion. It has to do with the fact that measure created a bridge between us and the rest of the University he did so when no one else was doing it and he did so at a time when I desperately needed to be done, I don't see anyone else on the surface who can continue to create an to maintain that sort of dialogue between the Sciences Humanities or between the variety of free-floating specialty shops that we called the Apartments as Michigan I must say that I would read it very specifically as a lack of commitment on the part of the College of liberal arts to that kind of. I am I think there's no question that it represents that I think another aspect of it. I think Hannah speaks. Very eloquently for this question of particular kinds of groups in particular needs and of the campus, but even the governance of the campus, I don't think we can avoid asking if it's possible for a group of a dozen two professors that include Regents professors heads of departments administrators, if it's possible that they cannot affect the decision in the case of somebody like pain will also enjoy all of his student support then what exactly do we mean by a governance at the University? What exactly do we mean by its Democratic institutions of I think it suggests that they are meaningless to the extent of that large and diverse group is unable to affect the decision. I think is Modi said this bridge that missions built is it's a Bridge Over Troubled Waters. And I think that we have to keep emphasizing, you know, the greater issue. That's at stake here and academic freedom is really the key. I can see many of us and certainly all of us here being affected by a decision in this regard and I think it's the lack of open form the lack of communication even on the part of us here who are speaking on behalf of mission don't know all the issues don't know where the facts lie in a certain lack of specificity that we have is a result of that lack of academic freedom both in this case and I'm sure that many of us will face similar situations. We have any many years of teaching ahead of us this entire situation. Is that the kind of situation that Michigan finds himself in is exactly the kind of material that would be part of his course content. I think that he is drawing on of the entire history of the Western in Oriental World In His courses deals with ways of handling the situation. I guess the foremost figure he'd bring a b c p snow in the conflict of the various cultures here on one side. We have ourselves as members of the academic Community with an idealistic point of view looking at a man who is being persecuted by A system that perhaps in a benign fashion and the Opposites that the challenge him and which he is threatened by others very opposites that he resents a three or four thousand years a historical president for his chorus. There's a manager for 12 years has struggled with the conflicts of the individual against the greater Society individual who's fought against individual. I'm against collectivism standing out as an individual being persecuted by a collective force and at the same time being supported by strong individuals within that same Collective institution. There's something wrong something isn't getting together. Now, he's Mission pain being threatened but academic freedom the university and all of us who are concerned about Humanity are being threatened the questions and concerns of friends colleagues students of University of Minnesota assistant professor of humanities Misha pan on the issue of his non-real appointment to his university teaching position. I'm kind of Goldman.