Coastal Carolina trustees vote for diversity, tenure and academic freedom
As a part of its most recent meeting in Conway, the board of trustees of Coastal Carolina University enacted significant revisions to its bylaws. Normally, such a pro forma move would rightly be greeted by a university’s constituencies with a yawn. The wordsmithing of bylaws is not usually impactful for any of the real people that boards are charged with serving. But these policy updates were significant for what they say about certain commitments I believe the Coastal Carolina University board of trustees is taking on.
The Academic & Student Affairs Committee became the Committee on Academic Excellence and Student Experience. The commitment is in the very name of the committee. We are sending the message that the board understands that students are our customers, and we intend to maximize the quality of student life at Coastal. We also put in writing that we will continue to insist on excellence in teaching, research and public service among our faculty.
Establishment of a legal & compliance committee
The Coastal Carolina Board of Trustees is blessed with the presence of a number of attorneys. All of them have been highly successful in their careers. One has served as an adjunct professor of law. But to date, their experience has been an untapped resource in any systematic manner. This new committee, working with our able University Counsel, will help keep Coastal Carolina on the right road legally in an increasingly challenging legal environment for all American colleges and universities.
Tasking a committee with ensuring diversity
No committee of the Board has ever been charged with leading efforts to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion at Coastal Carolina. That regrettable oversight has been corrected as the Administration, Governance, and Advancement Committee will have that portfolio. That committee’s efforts in this critical area will begin in earnest soon.
Charging a committee with defending tenure, academic freedom and freedom of speech
The French author and humanist Voltaire in corresponding with an intellectual opponent wrote: “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” That quotation has been popularized as “I disagree with what you say but would defend to the death your right to say it.”
The sentiment behind that aphorism is a summary of why tenure, academic freedom and freedom of speech must be protected in higher education in America. A university should be a marketplace of ideas, a place where opinions are met with facts and long-held beliefs are challenged. Professors should not be disciplined because their academic research may produce inconvenient findings. Speech should not be suppressed, but instead members of the university community should be encouraged to speak out and to vigorously contest ideas they oppose.
The board of trustees could have left these goals unstated and assumed that each trustee were passively on board with these aspirations. But I believe by affirming these commitments in writing, we are sending a message not only to ourselves but calling on every Coastal Carolina constituency to aid us in keeping these heady promises. With these principles serving as our guide, we can make Coastal Carolina University an even better place to learn, teach, research and serve.