Meditations #3

 "What is no good for the hive is no good for the bee."

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Six

Of course, Marcus also occasionally leads me astray, well, not actually astray I suppose, but he leads me in directions that I wouldn't naturally go, which I guess means that he's actually leading me on the right path. My frighteningly brilliant friend David, whose PhD is in philosophy, often talks about practical ethics. To me, Marcus Aurelius is the very definition of practical ethics (which is ironic because both David and Al tweak me for my love of MA, which I think they view as diluted Stoicism, which, in some sense it is, although I guess I would argue that is what makes it so useful). Last summer I was sitting in on our pre-semester AAUP meeting and it was time to discuss electing new officers. My name was unexpectedly brought up as a nomination for President. Truthfully, and this should come as no surprise to anyone, I had no interest in the position at all. That said, and this is why it always comes back to Marcus Aurelius, I immediately thought of the Meditations. In the end you have to do what you have to do, and this was one of those situations where what the hive needed was bigger than what the bee wanted. So, I spent this last year - and I suspect the next - as Champlain's AAUP President. It hasn't been too horrible, and I guess I'm as well-positioned as any professor at Champlain to push the administration on doing the right thing; I mean, they would be hard-pressed to fire me (and, sadly, way too many of my colleagues actually are afraid of such things). As part of pushing we've also found ourselves pushing the college on COVID issues, not surprisingly. In this specific case we definitely pushed the college to think of the hive instead of the bee by passing an AAUP resolution, and sharing it with the entire college, stating that the college should require the vaccination for all students on campus (truthfully, if you're just asking me, random dude, as compared to me, AAUP President, I would expand that to all faculty and staff - but even I don't win all my battles). About a week later the college announced that policy, although not that exact policy, in that the required a vaccination but included the tag line about "fully approved FDA vaccine" which I'm not happy with because it's an awfully big loophole. This, in turn, led me to explore the website of two-hundred different colleges to check on how they were playing it. Thus, the battle continues, but, win or lose, it brings us back to MA.

April 23, 2021

Dear President Akande, Vice President Averill, and Dave Finney:

The members of the Champlain College chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) thank you for your stewardship through this challenging academic year during the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that you are eager to reopen the campus fully and welcome back the entire Champlain College community beginning in the Fall of 2021. While we remain optimistic that cases will significantly decrease as more Americans become fully vaccinated, we feel that as a professional organization that represents and promotes important faculty interests, the safety, health, and welfare of Champlain College’s faculty is paramount to a successful Fall semester and beyond. To that end, the AAUP feels that Champlain’s best path forward is to follow the lead of many other public and private institutions of higher learning who are planning full Fall 2021 reopenings and update Champlain College’s immunization requirements for students to include proof of receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine authorized for use in the United States. 

This means that all students planning to attend in the Fall 2021 semester must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, except for students who request an exemption for medical or religious reasons. Additionally, we ask you to mandate and/or strongly urge all Champlain faculty and staff to get immunized against COVID-19.

From the onset of the pandemic, the safety of the broader Champlain community has been our shared responsibility. This has never been more true. The importance of a vaccine mandate to make our community safer for all cannot be overstated, and we look forward to seeing the Champlain College administration work to make this goal a reality.

Respectfully,

   

The Champlain College AAUP

   

Officers

Gary Scudder, Ph.D.

President

Eric Friedman, J.D.

Vice-President

Sanford Zale, Ph.D.

Secretary and Treasurer