From: Allen Callahan

Sent: 9/13/2006 12:51 PM
To: Cooper Nelson, Janet
Cc: [e-mail addresses redacted]
Subject: Re: suspension of campus recognition for Reformed
University Fellowship

 

Janet,
Rev. Sherwood's note to you presents several fundamental 

misunderstandings on his part. At no time have I ever indicated to

Rev. Sherwood or anyone else, that RUF is "a recognized student 

organization": if this was "assumed" in the course of our conversation

yesterday, the assumption was Rev. Sherwood's and Rev. Sherwood's

alone. That RUF is not in good standing with OCRL means, a fortiori,

that RUF cannot "continue as a recognized student organization." In

point of fact, RUF has not been "a recognized student organization"

since the fall of last year, due to the failure of RUF's then advisor and

associate on Rev. Sherwood's staff, Rev. Eric Molicki, to submit the

required paperwork for the renewal of his Religious Life Affiliate status

with the University.

I explained this failure on Rev. Molicki's part and its unhappy 

ramifications to Rev. Sherwood yesterday in some detail. At no time in

my conversation yesterday with Rev. Sherwood did I presume to

comment upon the institutional relationship of Trinity  Presbyterian

Church and RUF. I met with Rev. Sherwood, at his request, to explain

the actions of my office to him as RUF's sponsor. In that conversation I

made it clear to Rev. Sherwood that it is the judgment of my office that

the irresponsibility of RUF's leadership last year and this year has led

OCRL to refuse to renew RUF Religious Life Affiliate status again this

year. I also explained to him that under the leadership of Rev. Molicki

and last year's and now again this year's student president Ethan

Wingfield, RUF hs become possessed of a leadership culture of

contempt and dishonesty that has rendered all colleagial relations

with my office impossible. The RUF leadership's repeated and willful

failure to be respectful and transparent in its dealings with OCRL and

other offices on campus has made RUF the topic of more meetings, e-

mails, letters, and phone calls than all my other fifteen-odd Religious

Life Affiliates combined. Such a disruptive and wasteful drain on the

time, patience, and enenrgy of people on this campus -- including the

students involved in RUF, whom this office is duty-bound to protect --

must be brought to an end, and in our meeting yesterday Rev.

Sherwood led me to beleive that he and I were in agreement on that

point.

I saw yesterday's meeting as, among other things, an opportunity  for

Rev. Sherwood and Trinity Presbyterian Church to initiate a new 

relationship with the University, one in which my office could be 

confident that RUF's sponsoring organization would do its part to insist

that RUF abide by University standards of conduct.

Lamentably, Rev. Sherwood has chosen instead to make of the

meeting a point of reference for signaling to you and to the other

addressees of his note his support of a campus student organization

that, in its present illegitiimate status, is unsupportable. The University

has taken an action against a student organization for which Rev. 

Sherwood, as its sponsor, must take responsibility. But Rev.

Sherwood's note to you suggests that he is more concerned to protect

privileges and prerogatives of a status that RUF, due to its own 

actions, forfeited last year: Rev. Sherwood apparently does not

understand, my explanations nothwithstanding, that that forfeiture was

an official fait accompli as of last spring.
And lamentably, his message to you also suggests that my meeting

with Rev. Sherwood yesterday fell far short of "a first step toward

warmer and more cordial relations with all concerned."
-- A