This has been an extraordinary year for UTC.  Budget problems, SACS
accredidation demands, a new General Education curriculum, and a SOT
implementation. Gradually we find rights and freedoms eroded.

At the distinct risk of over-dramatizing our plight and trivializing a real
tragedy, I would recommend reading an excerpt from the "Klemperer Diary,"
which appeared last fall in the New Yorker magazine.  It is on reserve in
the library under my name or History 102.

It is the story of a Jewish (Protestant convert) professor who escapes the
camps by virtue of marriage to his German wife.  What students find
compelling about their daily life is the sheer pettiness and gradualist
erosion of their freedoms, one by one, until they are non-citizens (the 1936
Nuremburg laws were the watershed).

Since my arrival on campus in 1981 I have seen many benefits and rewards
gradually erode as UTC has become a less pleasant place to work and teach. I
fear the current change in tenure and its results will be like the Nuremburg
laws, a critical and irrevocable change in teaching, collegiality,
atmosphere, and management. Although I am sympathetic to the view that we
are going to enjoy even stronger academic freedom, I find this hard to
believe. I also think things will get worse for administrators as well as
faculty.

A responsible Knoxville source suggests frustration as they were trying to
implement their plan. I quote:

"How and when could the Senate have presented its views more effectively?
What obligation do the administration and the governing board have to
explain their decisions? What is the role of the General Counsel's office in
decision making? And generally, does this process  represent what faculty
can reasonably expect by way of "shared governance" at the University of
Tennessee?"

The answer to these rhetorical questions is, I believe, erosion of our
institutions of higher learning.

Richard Rice
History