Thanks to Caroline Brown for this brilliant cartoon! (See link below.) And thanks to several graduate and undergraduate students for attending the Senate Faculty meeting last week at such short notice. Your presence was noted and appreciated. As a result of the petition and Faculty Senate discussion, we will be meeting tomorrow (March 10) with  Northwestern Vice-President for Research Jay Walsh and Buffett Institute Director Bruce Carruthers to discuss the Buffett Institute appointment further. ----- Report on Faculty Senate Meeting March 2, 2016 - 1 of 2 The agenda item Faculty Senator Professor Michal Peled Ginsburg proposed was to withdraw the appointment of Ret. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry as Executive Director of the Buffett Institute.  The actual agenda item the Executive Committee set was to discuss the appointment.  At approximately 5:10 pm Professor Michal Peled Ginsburg, French and Italian Studies rose from her seat in Pancoe Auditorium to explain the importance of faculty control over the university's research and teaching mission. She expressed outrage at the University's appointment of a non-scholar who has publicly advocated the instrumentalization of  the humanities as U.S. "soft power." (You can find the text of her comments here: http://nothingisvirtual.net/Gingsburg-NUSenate-meeting-March2nd.pdf.) From the podium, Associate Professor Jorge Coronado, Chair of Department of Spanish and Portuguese reviewed the timeline of the administration rebuffing faculty efforts to discuss the appointment. Coronado's narrative underscored that the search process was remiss in dismissing faculty feedback prior to the appointment.  Standing next to him, Professor Jacqueline Stevens then reviewed the concerns over Eikenberry's qualifications and the campaign by the central administration to brand Eikenberry as a scholar. She also noted the selection of Eikenberry by Henry Bienen; the real objective through this appointment of rotating NU faculty through the government, as explained by V-P Walsh; the involvement by trustees in the appointment; and the control of Northwestern by General Dynamics and Abbott Laboratories, both firms that would benefit from Eikenberry's ties to foreign business networks.  In closing, Coronado pointed out that it is fine if NU wants to hire Eikenberry for his connections in order to benefit our students and colleagues, but this undertaking should be pursued through a position other than that of the Buffett leader. For reasons of space, we will post the administration's response and Senate discussion tomorrow. (Can send out just one update every 24 hours.)