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Thursday, 10 April 2008 |
Administration’s reaction to incident disheartening, dishonest
Dear Readers,
The opinion page of The Appalachian this issue has been set aside for a letter written by one of Appalachian State University’s faculty members.
The Appalachian received the letter this week and felt that it was a pressing enough topic to designate an entire page to assure it was entirely published.
On March 28, several anonymous sources contacted members of The Appalachian to voice their
frustration with the lack of information the university’s press release regarding the noose incident
provided the Appalachian community.
As each anonymous source told us their story, we began to realize that there was more to the noose
incident than the press release had led on. Our anonymous sources asked for our help in spreading the
truth about the incident and clearing an innocent professor’s name.
The anonymous sources were interviewed and a reporter was assigned to investigate the claims for a
story that would run in the following Tuesday’s issue of the paper.
When our news reporter began interviewing people for the article, he was met with silence on a number
of different occasions.
The reporter interviewed Dr. Edward Folts, the chairperson of the sociology department, but he had no
comment.
Whether Dr. Folts was unable to comment due to an administration-imposed gag order, or simply
unwilling, we will probably never know.
Vice Chancellor of Student Development Cindy A. Wallace provided little to no information to the
reporter. She referred often to the press release and the reporter left with a notebook full of unanswered
questions.
University Police Chief Gunther Doerr also appeared to be a dead-end.
Doerr spoke only to the police report. When the reporter asked for a copy of the police report that had
been filed, he was only allowed to view page one of eight pages. Page one also had a lot of blacked
out information.
The district attorney never returned phone calls or messages, and the university attorney who was
contacted provided little more than the original press release.
If the university was comfortable enough to send a press release to the entire student body, you would
hope they would be prepared to answer questions regarding the incident.
Not only answer questions, but answer all questions and with complete answers. Unfortunately, the
university couldn’t do either.
They couldn’t answer student’s questions during the counseling sessions, they couldn’t answer
questions the press had during interviews, and they couldn’t answer faculty questions - like the ones
Cinthia Pratt addressed in her letter.
I don’t understand why the university would feel the need to keep information from the student body
and faculty.
I don’t understand why the administration would leave the student newspaper with unanswered
questions and put a faculty member in a position where they feel the need to share a story they have
been hiding for almost a month.
There are a lot of things the university needs to address, and I urge them to figure out how to address
them before it’s too late.
If it isn’t too late already.
Sincerely,
Clair Baxter
Editor in chief
The Appalachian
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