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October 4, 2014

But first a word from your sponsor

The below explanation relates to my request to the right and up a few inches:




Some of you may know (and if you didn't you know now) that I am a graduate of the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City.  If you read the New York Times you will know that that seminary is going through a little bit of a problem rights now.  Oh not the financial problems of the past but a new one related to the abuse of power and refusal to hear the faculty when they complain about it. So 8 members of the faculty started a job action.  The Board of Trustees then "accepted their resignations" when the faculty had never tendered them.  The description below, copied from a posting on the Facebook group GTS8 Safe Space explains the situation succinctly.

"The 8 faculty members, both corporately and individually, asked for the Board to intervene over their diagnosis of a crisis of leadership in the seminary. After multiple requests were ignored,... the 8 started a job action as a way of trying to leverage a meeting with the Board. At that point, none of these allegations were public. In fact, the 8 were initially criticized for not presenting clear reasons for their actions publicly. By taking the most violent and intimidating course possible (not to mention questions of its legality), the Board guaranteed that all of this became public, and the Seminary community is fractured. None of this needed to have become an issue, if the Board had just set a date to meet with the faculty. Then we would not have debate about any of these statements, as many would never have seen the light of day, and most since 9/29 would never have been written."

I unconditionally support the faculty in this, and at the same time I support my alma mater.  If you support good labor relations and good teaching please feel free to contribute whatever you choose to this fund which is designed to help the faculty in this time of lawyers and cobra.

Now back to my regularly scheduled grousing about writing.

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