Letter from Irvin H. Brune to BGSU President William T. Jerome

May 25, 1970

Dr. William T. Jerome III
President, B.G.S.U.

Dear President Jerome:

Among your numerous excellent addresses during seven years at Bowling Green, your talk to the Faculty on May 21, 1970, was outstandingly eloquent. For those of us who believe that ribaldry, riots, and rifles fail as means of showing dissent, your words brought reassurance that, above all else, the University esteems intellectual growth. Except for a relatively few rabble rousers, I agree that the Faculty wants to keep the University open and active in preparing young minds by working--not by loafing between insurrections.

May I mention also three regrets? As a former member of the Faculty Senate, I deplore that body's approval, contrary, I believe, to your recommendation, of the Student Strike of May 7-8. Its pious wish that each student follow his "discretion and conscience" was weak, ill-founded, and aborted by ominous pickets.

Secondly, I regret the quibbling, by some, about policemen with guns and Faculty undercutting the New University. Who, except someone bent on breaking a law, should fear a policeman's gun? Who, except possibly a disappointed do-gooder whose seminar failed to fill would accuse a colleague of undercutting? I doubt that an entire Faculty should close shop after six weeks in a ten-weeks' term and scramble for scholarly salvation a la New University. Such a hasty act would probably harm the fledgling New University.

My third regret you received last October. Once again, I am sorry to see you leave Bowling Green, Bill.

If I can help in any way to keep the University open and working to teach disciplines as well as diversions, please let me know.

Sincerely yours,

Irv

Irvin H. Brune, Professor
Mathematics Education