students as teachers

Let me be the first to congratulate our A&S students and President Jacobs for demonstrating how a democratic process in a free-speech environment successfully achieves its ends. It was a Town Hall Meeting to be proud of! Local news agencies (including those of Block Communications Inc.) recognized the importance of the event and were on the scene to offer balanced coverage. Their reports included dramatic exchanges between student protesters and Dr. Jacobs contesting specific issues. Today, thanks to yesterday’s strategically-organized student activism, the general public is better informed of the crisis situation that currently exists at the University of Toledo. This present crisis, which will intensify into the Summer, directly threatens the traditional mission of its fine A&S College to continue to provide an excellent liberal arts education for its students. The concerned students who walked the picket line and later voiced their opinions at the Town Hall Meeting could teach our more timid faculty a thing or two about the most effective logistics of “speaking Truth to Power” in a democratic way in a time of crisis. Our A&S College works fine the way it is: It is time for President Jacobs to lay down his blueprints, pickaxes and shovels, and to smell the roses.