Professors are meant to inspire and encourage the work of students. They are meant to be role models for the young people aspiring towards whatever career they choose. They are meant to be supportive.
While not everyone at The Leader has had Dale Tuggy as a professor, personally, many know of him or heard public lectures by him. He was known to be an incredibly intelligent professor within the philosophy department and was notorious for never hesitating to give his opinion.
This is where things get a little messy.
Tuggy recently, as in the beginning of the semester, sent in his resignation letter on PROFTALK. Within the letter, he aired all pent up grievances he felt towards the university and, to the surprise of many, towards his fellow faculty and the students of SUNY Fredonia.
It is crucial to mention that not all points discussed in the letter were unimportant and some aspects about the college he described were not false.
No doubt we have had problems on our campus. We have had several terrible instances with insidious students who don’t represent the majority. Of course, not all people are the epitome of a “model” college student, but they are students nonetheless.
Tuggy specifically attacked business and education students, calling them the “weaker” members of the student population. Those going to school to be educators are some of the most diligent, caring and dedicated students. Business majors are incredibly talented and motivated students. In both cases, they are pursuing something that they are passionate about and not a single person, especially not a professor, gets to tell them that what they are doing is “less than,” in any way.
In terms of the points that have some bearing and importance on the campus, Fredonia is definitely facing a problem regarding deficits.
We can no longer afford to have as large of a student worker group in many of our institutions; our library, for instance, has less staff. There have been cuts to the amount of people on during the day because the university simply can’t afford to pay them.
At the same time, our enrollment has increased and so has the need for improvements for the campus. A prime example of necessity is that there isn’t enough parking, professors aren’t paid enough, meanwhile our administrators are pushing 300,000 dollars.
There is no doubt that Tuggy is an educated man. He was a professor here for a number of years and many students on this campus know him well.
That does not excuse the levels of disrespect that are evident in his email. To directly call out students and faculty that are working hard and striving to make the campus and the community better, is horrible.
To call anyone in higher education unintelligent and to claim that Fredonia is bringing in weaker students just because of the majors that are drawn to this university is unfair, unjustified and cruel.
Obviously, it is up to you to formulate your own opinion on the university, those that work here, those that attend and those that choose to leave.
It is never okay to make blanket statements about an entire group of people, however, and Tuggy should be ashamed, as a professor, for saying what he did about the students here at Fredonia.
This email was a direct attack to our student population, to our hard working professors and our administrators who, in most cases, are doing their best.