Subject: LA RUNION DU 8 JUILLET AVEC LE PRESIDENT DE
L'UNIVERSITE STENDHAL, PATRICK CHEZAUD.
9 July
2004
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
Please find below a description of our meeting with Standhal University President, Patrick Chezaud, which was the
second of two meetings held on campus yesterday, where the survival of CEIMSA
was discussed.
Sincerely,
Francis Feeley
Professor of American Studies
Stendhal University
__________________________________________________________
SCANDAL AT STENDHAL
(8 July 2004)
The meeting with the President of Stendhal University, M.
Patrick Chezaud, was scheduled for 10h30. It was
preceded by a meeting of the Conseil de l'UFR d'Anglais, which began at
9h. I attended both meetings.
After more than an hour into the UFR meeting, I excused my self at 10h15,
explaining that I was leaving for a meeting with President Chezaud,
concerning the current attempts to liquidate the UFR d'Anglais Research Center, CEIMSA. I announced that I intended to try to negotiate with the University President to reach a
compromise by which CEIMSA could continue to exist as a small local
research center, and it university web site (http://www.u-grenoble3.fr/ceimsa)
would be restored. I declared to my colleagues on the Conseil de l'UFR d'Anglais, before
departing for the presidential meeting, that "A university must represent
on its campus all the elements in the "universe of ideas" and that
the scholarly and pedagogical activities of CEIMSA are opportunities to
represent important elements in contemporary American society, aspects which
are not well known nor completely understood by many Europeans. The Directress
of our UFR, M. Susan Blattes, and my other colleagues
on the Conseil de l'UFR d'Angais (many of whom had already signed petitions
defending academic freedom and supporting the continuation of CEIMSA research
and pedagogical activities as a useful part of the UFR d'Anglais program at Stendhal University) agreed that a General Assembly should be called
at the start of the fall semester, where traditional academic freedom and CEIMSA's right to exist could be discussed by all parties
involved directly and indirectly with this crisis.
I left the UFR meeting before it was over, at 10h25 and hurriedly walked to the
President's office.
Two representatives from my teachers' union, SNEsup,
had agreed to attend this meeting. I met Marc Troivallets (professor of economics and president of the U. Stendhal chapter of SNEsup) and Jean Derioz (former
director of the UFR d'Anglais and also member of SNEsup) at the entrance to the building where the
President's office is located. At the bottom of the stairs we encountered Mme. Odile Lagacherie (Vice-President
of Stendhal University and also a member of SNEsup).
We greeted her warmly, after which she informed me that she did not appreciate
the fact that I had told people that no explanation had been given for the
removal of the CEIMSA web site from the university server. "The University
has roles," she scolded me, "and you must obey them." In my
mind, I had disobeyed no rules and what I had told people was the truth, namely
no reason WAS given for the removal of the CEIMSA web site, and at the time I
was using it in a summer course on the history of
The three of us -Marc Troisvallets, Jean Derioz and myself- walked up the
stairs to meet the University President, M. Patrick Chezaud.
After a few minutes he came to the outer office and greeted us. He at that time
made two surprising announcements: a)Vice-President of
the Conseil Scientific, M. Michel Lafon,
would not attend this meeting, as he had previously agreed, and b)there would
be no negotiations on changing the decision to liquidate CEIMSA.
When I asked why M. Lafon would not attend the
meeting to discuss the future of CEIMSA, the President told me that he simply
did not want to. (In in the course of the
one-and-a-half hour meeting which followed in the President's office, President Chezaud mentioned several times that he wished Michel Lafon were present to respond to our questions.)
As we were about to enter the President's office to begin the meeting, he
looked around and announced that this meeting had been scheduled for Feeley and
himself, that the representatives of SNEsup could see
him at a later time if they wished. Marc protested politely, saying that he
thought that SNEsup could help resolve this
labor-management conflict by negotiating some solution to the problems created
by the liquidation of CEIMSA and its web site. It was at this point that
President Chezaud announced categorically that:
"There will be NO negotiations!" This decision was taken at the
administrative level, he continued, and it was not open for nagotiations.
No modifications of this decision would be made.
I turned away and was about to refuse to enter his office by myself when
President Chezaud relented and said, "Well,
okay, both of you can come in with Feeley and listen to what I have to say to
him. I don't have to let you come in, but I will. I don't mind."
The four of us, including President Chezaud, then entered
the President's inner office, and we sat down at a table with six places. Jean Derioz and I sat at opposite ends of the table, and Marc Troisvallets and the President sat across from each other,
next to Professor Derioz.
The discussion began with President Chezaud stating
that the decision to eliminate CEIMSA had been taken at the March 23 meeting of
the Conseil Scientifique (C.S.), which both he and I had attended and that there was nothing he could do
to change that decision.
Marc spoke politely defending the activities of CEIMSA over the past three
years in general terms and the importance of not depriving teachers of their
pedagogical materials (i.e. the CEIMSA web site, then in use). Finally,
President Chezaud responded, "Yes, but there is
nothing I can do."
In the course of the discussion, I explained that the vote taken at the March
23 meeting of the Conseil Scientifique concerned explicitly CEIMSA's formal request to
receive a BQR (a subsidy from the university) of 1,000 euros, to be used for
the up-coming conference with Jim Hightower, on 22-23 April. The discussion
never revolved around the "extinction" of CEIMSA, as was subsequently
claimed by President Chezaud and Vice-President Lafon. Again, there had been no clear discussion of the liquidation
of CEIMSA and the removal of it web site from the university server.
During the discussion about the 1,000 euros subsidy (the BQR) and the Hightower
conference, I acknowledged that CEIMSA was a small research center (we had only
four local faculty members at the time and I was doing most of the publishing)
but that it had attracted the attention of a large number of students and
scholars, many of whom were among the over 1000 participants at each of the
three International Conferences, which CEIMSA had organized these past three
years (beginning in January 2002). In addition, CEIMSA had published the
scientific writings of dozens of French and American scholars, as well as
outstanding essays by Grenoble students.
I concluded by presentation to the CS by stating that I was surprised the BQR
proposal was on the CS agenda in March, one month before the CEIMSA conference,
since I had been told I would not receive a BQR and had not recently asked for
one. I went on to say that if I were granted the BQR for 1,000 euros that I
would be able to enlarge the conference in April by inviting former U.S.
Senator The Honorable James Abouresk, from South
Dakota, who had already agreed to come for the Conference if funding was
available, and perhaps The Honorable Barbara Lee, U.S. Representative from
District 5 in northern California.
I quickly added, however, that if the CS decided not to give CEIMSA the BQR of
1,000 euros, the conference would simply be smaller in size. Michigan artist,
Joanna Learner, had already sent her pacifist art work for exhibit at this
conference on "The Contemporary State of American Political Culture,"
and authors Jim Hightower and Susan DeMarco (from
Austin, Texas), along with Professor Keith Gushorn (California State University) were planning to attend the conference, as were
several scholars from Paris, Montpellier, and Chambery.
This smaller conference was made possible with a grant from Tramway nomme culutre, on campus.
My second statement at the March 23 CS meeting concerned the future of CEIMSA:
My preference, I told my CS colleagues, was to remain an small independent
research center, until I could recruit more active members and create a network
with other university research centers in southern France, as had been
suggested by the Ministry of Education in Paris the year before (in January
2003). However, I continued, I was also prepared to request M. Lafon permission to join his very large equip and to work
inside the university structure in this manner. (I remember clearly, Michel Lafon smiling at me and saying "S.O.S., right
Francis?") There simply was no discussion about the "extinction"
of CEIMSA at that meeting and, to my knowledge, no
vote was ever taken on this question.
Having reminded President Chezaud of the discussion
at the CS meeting in front of my SNEsup comrades
(neither of whom had attended this CS meeting), I went on to recall that three
weeks ago, when I met President Chezaud and M. Lafon in the corridor near the President's office, I had
asked M. Lafon to place me on the Agenda of the next
CS meeting, which was scheduled for 22 June, so I could defend CEIMSA against
the plan to liquidate it. He replied that the July agenda was full, and when I
asked to defend CEIMSA at the September CA meeting, he again told me that this
agenda was also too full to allow me to speak in defense of CEIMSA. Finally, we
agree to the current meeting on 8 July in the President's office, which of
course M. Lafon did not attend.
Michel Lafon, Vice-President of Research at Stendhal
University, had taken nearly three
month, since the CS meeting in March, before deciding to tell me he would not
permit CEIMSA to join his equip. In the same message in which he rejected my
request, he informed me (on 12 June) that he and President Chezaud would inform me of the "extinction" of CEIMSA. The CEIMSA web site
containing more that 3000 pages of scholarly writings was removed from the
University Stendhal server on July 1,
2004 and is no longer available to students and scholars.
It was clear at the meeting with President Chezaud yesterday, 8 July, that the chronology of events was not in dispute, but that
the meaning of these events clearly is:
1) President Chezaud claims that the CS clearly voted
for the extinction of my research center. I claim that the vote was taken not
to subsidize the Hightower Conference, which I had already stopped asking for
long before March. I would be satisfied, I announced to my colleagues in the
CS, with a small conference.)
2) President Chezaud claims that the research center,
CEIMSA, is dead, that there is no reason for me to defend its existence. I
claim that, after Michel Lafon's refusal, on 12 June,
to include CEIMSA in his equip, CEIMSA must have the right to continue its work
until I find another solution. This was the spirit of the decision take my
former President Lise Dumasy in January 2003, and I ask nothing more that the
opportunity to confer with my colleagues on the CS at a regular meeting in the
fall semester.
3) President Chezaud claims that the large attendance
at the CEIMSA International Conferences lends proof that the work of this
research center is "not scientific". I claim that topics in American civilization , and particularly in contemporary history,
attract popular attention, due to the news media. Scholars, students, and
social activists come together in large numbers to hear social analysis and
reports from scientific research on topics they have heard something about
already. In brief, it is because of popular interest and not due to unscientific
demagogy the these international conferences have
attracted such large numbers of people.
4) President Chezaud claims that the removal of the
CEIMSA web site (http://www.u-grenoble3.fr/ceimsa)
form the Stendhal University
server is not denying access to students and scholars because I can easily
purchase the services of a private server (like "wanadoo.fr"). I
claim that as a scholar and professor in the French university system, my
academic work should be associated with Stendhal University, that the CEIMSA
web site should be housed at the University Stendhal server,
"u-grenoble3.fr".
The presence and brief interventions of SNEsup representatives, Jean Derioz and Marc Troisvallets, helped everyone present at the President's
meeting with me to come to a better understanding of the procedure by which our
research center CEIMSA has come under the threat of "extinction".
Before leaving his office, I told President Chezaud:
a)that I did not want CEIMSA to be marginalized by
Stendhal University, b)that the CEIMSA web site should be restored immediately
so that my Master and Doctoral students could continue using it for their
academic research this summer, and c)that I wish to present my case to the CS
for an open democratic discussion and vote on the important issues at hand,
which include traditional academic freedoms and freedom of expression.
Chezaud replied: 1)CEIMSA does not exist, 2)the web
site will not be restored, and 3)if I really want the CEIMSA question to be on
the agenda of the Conseil Sceintfiique meeting next fall, that I must contact Michel Lafon (of whom President Chezaud had repeatedly said,
"I which he had come to this meeting.").