Dear Reader,

My name is Megan Murphy and I am a senior at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, majoring in Horticulture. Last Thursday our Board of Trustees announced that they had selected Gov. Mitch Daniel's to be our university's 12th president.

Immediately myself and several students, faculty, and alumni have formed an opposition to analyze what we believe is a conflict of interest between the board and Mr. Daniels by the board's own bylaws. Not to mention, a breech of our trust for not so much as telling us who the candidates were, what were their qualifications, and all around keeping us in the dark about their election.

Many of us fear the same back room deals will make its way into our beloved university and that a Purdue education will merely become a consumable product. 8 of the 10 board of trustees were appointed by Daniel's himself, 7 of them having made considerable donations to either his campaign or the Indiana Republican party. It is also floating around out there that some of their contracts had been renewed just days before they voted him in as our president.

Mr. Daniels also, by a law he passed himself, will not be allowed to lobby after his term for one year; which is a big part of his job as Purdue President. He is quoted as knowing of this conflict. He has suggested he will not fulfill these major duties in his first year.

His record on public and higher education is dismal. He cut $300 million from K-12 in 2008 which led to numerous teacher firings and class room size increases. In 2011 he cut $150 million from our public universities causing tuition to increase the next year. All these cuts occurred while his administration misplaced $500 million of the Indiana State budget and while he supported one of the largest voucher systems for private schooling, many of which religious in nature.

Many of us despise the idea of having any partisan politician, not just Republican, as the figure head of our alma mater. But in particular we need a president who will be a unifying voice of all our people, including our LGBT and other minorities. We need a president who will be a champion of hard sciences. And we feel some of Mr. Daniel's attitudes will not align with that necessity. Our outgoing president France A. Cordova has a Ph.D in Physics, has published 150 papers, was a NASA chief scientist, and has been the head of an academic department. Mr. Daniels does not even have a Ph.D. We also feel the governor is not qualified.

Many of our Purdue population have formed the Society for an Open, Accountable Purdue. Our long term goals include making a more transparent board and presidential process that actually takes the concerns of the people they wish to govern into consideration, and to stop these blind swings to the face. It is our duty to create a Purdue that is accessible to its body and listens its concerns. No more closed door elections. We have constructed this mission to unify our base as we know many support Mr. Daniels. What we suggest is that the true problem is larger and beyond that.

We will be staging a protest on Saturday, June 30th, 2012. Though, this will likely just be the beginning as many of our supporters will not return till the fall.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/476382959043084/ (our group)
https://www.facebook.com/events/165225290269367/ (our event)

This is our generation.
This is our time.

SOPA is not a bill about preventing piracy like it says it to be. It is a sad attempt to preserve an archaic business model incompatible with the Internet and growing technology. The time is for THEM to progress. Not for our young generations to regress.

Please look at these links and sign. Please call your congressmen and Senators. Please spread the message through Xanga, Facebook, and Twitter.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
http://sopastrike.com/strike/