Oilman Bruce Benson: New CU President
February 24, 2008 on 5:59 pm | In Academic Freedom, ContextFebruary 20, 2007 – the Regents of the University of Colorado voted to approve Hank Brown’s hand-picked successor Bruce Benson as President.
As you may remember, CU President Betsy Hoffman announced her resignation a few days after warning the faculty about the “new McCarthyism” attending Ward Churchill’s case. She was replaced by Hank Brown, one of the founding members of Lynne Cheney’s American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). ACTA issued its “How Many Ward Churchills?” report in the midst of the Churchill investigation. Brown announced his plans to retire almost immediately after ensuring that Ward Churchill was fired.
Benson’s qualifications?
* A member of ACTA’s Trustee’s Council (click here for more on the ACTA connection to Ward Churchill’s case)
- Multi-millionaire oil and gas executive
- Has a BA in geology; apparently believes we don’t really need to worry about climate change (since people and plants emit CO2)
- As president of the trustees at Metropolitan State, had the rules rewritten to eliminate tenured faculty and replace them with cheaper help (otherwise known as the Wal-Mart approach)
But don’t worry about academic freedom, he has assured CU that he’ll promote “sensible” research and professors who teach “what they are supposed to teach.”
For more background on Benson, see statement of CU-Boulder’s AAUP chair.
Finally, for those who haven’t been paying attention, apparently being university president isn’t about academia anyway. As former Colorado state supreme court justice Kourlis says, “To know Bruce Benson is to love him. If he tells you he will stay out of academia, he will stay out of academia.” (Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 21, 2007.)
