Presidential veto letters from James L. Fisher

Towson State College Baltimore, Maryland 21204 TO: Members of the Academic Council FROM: James L. Fisher SUBJECT: Academic Council Resolution Calling for the Suspension of Classes on Election Day and Rationale for Presidential Veto DATE: 10-10- 7 2 Consistent with my Constitutional responsibility to the Academic Council, the following is my response to tha October 2, 1972 resolution concerning suspension of classes on Election Day, November 7, 1972. I have already made known my reservations about the effectiveness and value of suspending 5lasses as a way of encouraging students' involvement in the political proces?. Nonetheless, I received the Council resolution as a gesture made with integrity and sincere concern, and, in this case, my commitment to the process far transcended my personal position. I also noted, as was evident to the members of the Council ~nd other observers, that little consideration had been given to the implications of the recommendation for the Evening college. Subsequently, the Dean of the Evening College, Dr. Cox, and the Academic Dean, Dr. Shaw, both urged that the Evening School and other classes which meet only once a week be excluded from any recommendation I might accept. Their logic, which I ultimately accepted, was that a class day for the Evening College is equivalent to a week's work for a full-time student and that this represented an excessive loss of class time. Furthermore, since every employer is required by law to allow at least two hours absence for voting, no Evening student would be denied voting prerogatives by being obliged to attend classes beginning at 7 p.m. These circumstances presented me with four alternatives: 1. Accepting without qualification the Academic Council's recommendation which, as I have indicated, would have been unacceptable because of its effects on the Evening College. 2. Rejecting categorically the motion because of its effect on the Evening College and because it wai admittedly a short run approach to a calendar which the Council had previously considered and adopted. I was dissuaded from a complete veto because of the obviously negative effects of such action on student involvement in College governa11ce and because of the possibility that positive effects might yet be gained by suspending classes on Election Day. 3. Calling for the Academic Council to xeconvene and reexamine