Now I read in my union lit that some New York rightwing group has to sue under freedom of information act to get access to the course syllabi and cvs of some of the people involved. Their obvious intent is to make hay with whatever they find thereon. Probably highly theoretical mumbo jumbo about masturbation and discourse and fucking and stuff.
While I have no sympathy with the right, I really don't understand why any group should have to file a FOIA request to get course syllabi and/or a CV. I consider this kind of stuff public domain. In fact I and many of my colleagues have it posted on the internet:
http://www.albany.edu/gspa/pos/faculty/posfac1.html will give you my own and various other cvs.
http://www.albany.edu/gspa/pos/teaching/fall98syllabi.html will give you the syllabi of the various faculty not too lazy or otherwise preoccupied (as for example on leave) to pass them on to our webmaster for posting.
So now, here's my question: Is the attempt by a right wing group to get this information "fascist intrusion", or shouldn't we, as public employees, provide it as a matter of course??? What is the big deal about handing out your qualifications and course materials? Don't the New Paltz departments in question make it look as if they are ashamed of their professional qualifications and/or course curricula to force an entity--even if right wing--to court to get this kind of stuff?
Am I missing something here?
-- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 12222
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