Running for Faculty Senate President

That would be me. It seems natural, and almost obligatory, that I would, after many years of involvement in University and faculty politics and affairs, and after many years of declining past nominations. Time to step up. I think I can do a good job.

I last ran for president in 1974, when I was defeated for high school student council president by Pete Fitzsimmons. Pete was a track star and a really smart kid (went to Harvard), and a good guy. As I recall I received about 40% of the vote. Did I have a platform? An ideology? What were the pressing issues at E.O. Smith High? All I really remember is that I had been a born-and-raised "liberal Republican" in the Lowell Weicker mold, but by the end of high school I was drifting leftward, soon to be promising raw material for the Marxist economists and Frankfurt School philosophers I would gravitate toward at UMass.

Is my current run merely a search for redemption, affirmation? Are you reading this, Fitz? And what do I stand for now? I can answer that. The teaching-scholar model. The university as open institution, run transparently and democratically. Fairness and participation. Mom and apple pie, I suppose. Welcome to Washington, Mr. Smith.