Fall 2020 Issue 104 the Extension President’S Message: Larry Prochaska in This Issue the Pandemic Has Given Us Time to Focus
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2 Wright State University Retirees Association Fall 2020 Issue 104 The Extension President’s Message: Larry Prochaska In This Issue The pandemic has given us time to focus. It has President’s Message 2 also allowed us to see our unique fragility as (Cont.) human beings old enough to be retired. In From the Right addition, the George Floyd case shocked our imagined and/or assumed foundations of our Tribute: James Sayer country to the core. Where do we stand as human beings, Ohioans, and Americans? Artist’s Corner 3 Our university continues to experience financial Mike DeWine… 4 hardship that is self-inflicted as well as tied to Ohio's declining population of college-aged students and financial support from the state. When Mike DeWine (Cont.) 5 the university was founded, it was modeled as a low tuition option for place- T-Ball Highlights bound, first-generation college students. As the university expanded its degree programs into graduate and professional schools, tuition remained T-Ball Highlights (Cont.) 6 low, well below the state average for other comprehensive universities in WSURA Board Ohio. As a result, during lean state budget years, the university never caught up financially to tuition levels of other state universities. In addition, A Beautiful Day…. 7 the state subsidy per enrolled full-time student declined from 41% in 1999 to 20% currently. Finally, the administration’s sometimes unwise decisions and misplaced priorities added to the problem. These factors contributed to Covid-19 Changes 8 the financial crisis the university currently faces, one that the Board of Trustees and the state government must tackle. From the beginning, the university worked to serve its targeted minority communities in the Dayton area and then evolved to support more diversity and inclusion, including training for students, staff, and faculty in the 1990s. For example, I attended diversity training in 1997 and the College of Science and Math appointed me as diversity liaison from 2008–2015. The deans and the upper level administration financially supported and encouraged this type of training and established appropriate infrastructure to ensure good outcomes. In short, the university recognized its obligation to serve all Ohioans. I believe that as an institution we have failed the populace of the state of Ohio by not communicating effectively the rationale for societal norms. The idea that a basic public health measure like wearing a mask to stop an epidemic is an act of political affiliation is shocking beyond imagination. Similarly, the belief that vaccinations are a dangerous government-driven conspiracy is just plain scary. As a biomedical scientist, I have come to believe that I should have spent more time talking about public health and basic science rather than focusing mostly on my research career. University professors are often considered elitist, and we have done little to diffuse that argument. (Cont. on Page 2) PAGE 2 3 The Extension President’s Message (Cont.) James E. Sayer Tribute With regards to ourselves, we seem to have lost September 11, 1946–July 12, 2020 our way in terms of common civility. We allow It is hard to summarize Jim Sayer’s political differences to divide us into enemy camps. myriad contributions to Wright It is disturbing that planning for our common future State University. He came up on the planet is sometimes considered un- through the ranks as a faculty American. I received my PhD from Ohio State and member. He was a popular and came back to work in Ohio because I thought effective teacher in both large people here were hardworking, supported public lectures and small seminars. His education and were a proud, fair-minded people. In scholarly interests were wide my heart, I still believe this is true. In that spirit, I ranging, from American history ask you to support our university, faculty, staff, and politics to more esoteric topics in rhetoric. students and the administration in whatever He usually found a way to accommodate almost any mechanism you choose. This good university and favor asked of him. If you needed a guest speaker, its proud history should not be allowed to wither Jim could always deliver, often on short notice. He away into oblivion. was friendly, open, and devoid of snobbishness about rank or position. He was an effective From the Right department chair and an innovative and successful dean of the Lake Campus, increasing enrollment “Property and capital are not soulless abstractions, from 730 to 1,500 during his tenure. easily replaced by an insurance payout, as the rioters and their apologists maintain. Capital is He served as president of the faculty a record seven accumulated effort and innovation, the sum of times. He liked the nitty gritty of university politics human achievement and imagination. Its creation is and enjoyed sparing with every president from the aim of civilization. But civilization is everywhere Kegerreis to Hopkins. One of his proudest and at all times vulnerable to the darkest human accomplishments was persuading President impulses. Government exists to reign in those Kegerreis to pickup the STRS pick-up, which impulses so that individual initiative can flourish. effectively gave the faculty a $5,000 raise. He America’s Founders, schooled in a profound represented the faculty in good times and during philosophical and literary tradition dating back to retrenchments and unionization. He had been classical antiquity, understood the fragility of civil elected to an eighth term but withdrew to become peace and the danger of the lustful, vengeful mob.” dean. It is clear that the faculty who elected him time and again trusted and valued his leadership. This astonishing paragraph was adapted from a lecture Heather Mac Donald delivered at an online In retirement, Jim continued to teach an Honors symposium, “The Coronavirus and Public Policy,” Seminar each fall term and he got involved in the held by Hillsdale College in Michigan on June 18, Retirees Association. He served a three-year term 2020. Hillsdale, a conservative liberal arts college, as president-elect, president, and past-president. upholds its Christian heritage though it is no longer Jim was the most effective president ever in terms affiliated with the Baptists who founded it in 1844. of getting through the agenda in an efficient and Hillsdale accepts no federal or state aid, because of timely manner. He was also successful in securing disputes about Title IX and other reporting a modest but much needed budget enhancement requirements. for WSURA. When he and Cathy decided to move to Washington state, we wished them well but were Heather Mac Donald is a Fellow at the Manhattan sad to see such valued colleagues and friends Institute. Her credentials are sterling: a Yale B.A., leave the area. an M.A. in English from Cambridge, a J.D. from Stanford Law. She writes for multiple newspapers Our heartfelt condolences to Cathy and their four and periodicals, including The New York children, Bob, Laura, Annie, and Steven. Times and The Wall Street Journal. Mac Donald has published several well-received books. She is To learn more about Jim’s time at Wright State, check out his an atheist who describes herself as a “secular interview on WSURA’s oral history site, conservative.” https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/archives_retirees/33/ 4 PAGE 3 The Extension Artist’s Corner Ohio Has a New Poet Laureate Oh You Woman of Appalachia In June Governor Mike DeWine appointed a new poet laureate for how they work to keep you down, Ohio, Kari Gunter-Seymour, a call you fat, shoeless, retired instructor from the E.W. say you have no teeth. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. She believes But you got teeth, plenty. poetry is even more important Ask any city man thinking to park now that we are in the midst of his fracking machines in your valley. so much turmoil and pain. “When we write our truths, we And the earth responds, bring things to light and create rewards you in petals, understanding. And from there we herbs, sweet potato vines. grow and find our way through these things that are so difficult for us right now,” she says. And yes we know, one good fiddle lick makes you forget tired or hungry, Gunter-Seymour previously served as poet laureate of Athens and is also a talented photographer. She is the and yes that is your voice founder and curator of the Women of Appalachia Project, strong and true, front row of the choir which seeks to showcase the art and literature of the region. come Sunday morning, slipping Her family is deeply rooted in the region—she is a ninth more than you ought in the donation box, generation Appalachian. Her most recent book is A Place So because you cannot bear to think Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen. of any of your neighbors going without. Bethal Ridge Cemetery Generation to generation, childhood to womanhood, On the edge that time thins, I stood failing crops and dying children, with aching arms, in a wrinkled dress. the mine siren’s doom. Among the stones a holier-than-thou, Your sorrows like echoes dark-robed and flailing, recited psalms by the shovelful. rippling through the holler and entered with careful cursive It’s the body that feels pain, in the family Bible. but the brain delivers it. To this day, sometimes driving So when they call you soft, I say, I see black wings flapping between You are not soft. bare branches and overreact. You are limestone. Someone once told me we make You are flint. everyone in our dreams into another You are mountain shine, version of ourselves, that rage isn’t rage feed-sack proud.