Editor:
Is the University of Colorado afraid of creating “little Ward Churchills” if students are exposed to him in the classroom?  Among the pleasures and rewards of a university education in addition to the substance of what the professors “teach” , but also what students receive of “who” each professor “is.”  In the latter regard, it seems Professor Churchill may have much to give.  (I have no knowledge of his research or the validity of it.)
In my own long-ago Occidental College education, a demanding professor taught “The Making of the Modern Mind,” the title of both the
course and the textbook.   I’ve forgotten the name of the text’s author,
but have never forgotten the name, the voice, and the demeanor of the professor, nor his deep involvement and enthusiasm around his field of
study.    Although I have not heard Churchill in the classroom, he may
be such a professor.    Realizing the pressures universities feel to
keep in the good graces of generous donors, I realize there will be tension and dispute over offering him a faculty post.  Yet for CU to exclude Professor Ward Churchill  would seem inimical to the ideal of a university as society’s primary setting intentionally open to diverse ideas.

Joyce Robertson
Boulder

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