UMass officials quash credit-for-campaigning offer

[Erewhon]

<p>Gawd I love Amherst and the Happy (aka Pioneer) Valley folk. :)</p>

<p>"University of Massachusetts officials on Monday quashed efforts by an Amherst campus chaplain to offer two college credits to any student willing to campaign in New Hampshire this fall for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.</p>

<p>We’re disappointed, but frankly not surprised, that the liberal academic elite have once again decided to promote one candidate over another," said GOP spokesman Barney Keller. “Our tax dollars pay their salaries so they can teach our children how to make up their own minds, not to advance a partisan political agenda.”</p>

<p>[My</a> Way News - UMass officials quash credit-for-campaigning offer](<a href=“HeadlineAlley”>HeadlineAlley)</p>

[marite]

<p>Actually, this does credit to the UMass administration. The History Department, upon learning of the actual content of the proposal involving some unnamed (and possibly non-existent) professor beside the chaplain, rescinded the idea of providing credit for what had originally been billed as a non-partisan get out the vote effort but turned out to be campaigning for only one candidate.</p>

<p>

UMass-Amherst spokesman Ed Blaguszewski said Higgins had previously arranged history department credit for students working on disaster relief efforts or other humanitarian ventures, and had raised the idea of similarly rewarding students who got involved in the political process during the 2008 election.</p>

<p>Blaguszewski said university officials had envisioned that the efforts would involve nonpartisan work such as get-out-the vote campaigns, but changed their minds about the proposal when they saw a portion of Higgins’ e-mail.</p>

<p>“The history department chair feels that what they were told was misleading, and then when the details of this emerged through the correspondence, they said, ‘Hey, this is not appropriate and it’s not going to happen,’” Blaguszewski said.

</p>

<p>The “liberal academic elite” attacked by the campus Reublicans seems to consist solely of the totally misguided campus chaplain.</p>