Bryan College leaders need to resign – now
Last weekend, a new alumni protest went online calling for the resignations of the president of Bryan College, Steven Livesay, and the chair of its board, Delana Bice. The protest is a public Change.org petition, and as I write, it approaches 1,000 signatures. This petition follows the revelations of financial shenanigans in this newspaper and the recent firing of yet another long-time tenured professor.
If the college administration is true to form, it will ignore this protest, as it has done every protest. Since 2014, the college has lost more than 100 faculty, administrators, staff and board members who could no longer support the college’s leadership. Livesay and the current board probably regard these protests as persecution and their own stances as faithfulness to their Christian mission. But how many Christians have to say that they are wrong before the problem becomes clear – that it is their own hubris?
I am an alumnus of Bryan College, class of 1987, and a professor in Indiana. I would recommend students look elsewhere for an education, at some of the other Christian colleges in the Chattanooga area. The future at Bryan is dim.
Jack Heller
Huntington, Ind.
City criticized sharply for Miller Park ‘arborcide’
Dear Mr. Mayor,
The $8.5 million plan to redesign Miller Park is a discretionary and debatable use of resources, but let’s leave that discussion aside for now.
In clearing the land, the city has committed an unforgivable environmental atrocity by cutting down every single tree. I cannot believe it was deemed necessary to cut down the eight mature, 40-to 50-year-old trees that lined Market Street on the edge of the park.
Access to the site was already available from three other sides. There were also tall, mature magnolias along the 10th Street border that could have and should have been spared. There is no acceptable explanation for this wanton “arborcide.”
John C Reis
‘Dance Alive’ photos capture dancers’ joy
My thanks to Times Free Press staff photographer Doug Strickland for his marvelous photos of Ballet Tennessee’s Dance Alive recital in last Saturday’s paper, which so perfectly captured the sheer joy of artistic expression on the young dancers’ faces.
Sincere thanks, too, to Anna Baker Van Cura and her late husband, Barry, for their vision, dedication and perseverance in bringing Ballet Tennessee to Chattanooga when it was a very different, and not very receptive, city.
Gratefully,
Marcia Kling