Editor’s Note: The Daily News publishes Letters to the Editor with minimal copy edits and provides a headline only if the author does not provide one. The views expressed in letters do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. We reserve the right to withhold submitted letters depending on the content. Letters should be approximately 500 words and sent to editor@bsudailynews.com.
To the Editor:
We at Ball State are aware of the unfortunate incident that occurred on our campus. One of the participants was Dr. Shaheen Borna.
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Dr. Shaheen Borna has been a dedicated faculty member over the past 35+ years. He has been an outstanding researcher, teacher and has spent countless hours on committees and serving students. In fact, there has been no faculty member during his tenure who has spent more time on the Ball State campus than Dr. Borna. Over his career he has spent many evenings and weekends working on his research, teaching, and in service to the University. This has been witnessed by many of his colleagues. A few years ago Dr. Borna was recognized as Ball State’s Outstanding Professor.
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Dr. Borna chose to handle the situation by his understanding of the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities (See appendix Q in the BSU Students Rights handbook), others thought the situation should have been handled differently. For those of you who do not know Dr. Borna, please don’t judge him on this one act. We all have events in our lives, if we had them to do over again, we would have handled them differently.
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We are all committed to learn from this unfortunate incident and provide an inclusive and supportive environment for each and every student at Ball State. After discussion with Dr. Borna following the incident, and in our extensive professional experience with him, we believe Dr. Borna shares that commitment, as well.
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As such, the following faculty wish to express their continued support to Dr. Borna as a colleague and many as his friend.
Ramon A. Avila
Maoyong Fan
Deva Rangarajan
Jensen Zhao
Noah Koontz
James McClure
Tung Liu
Thomas Baird
Ann Reichle
Jessica Zeiss
Lisa Goodpaster
Russ Wahlers
Stanley Osweiler
Maria Tobar
Danny Spindler
Cecil Bohanon
Joseph Chapman
Gail Stautamoyer
Matt Marvel
Michael G. Goldsby
Norm VanCott
James Lowry
Thomas Harris
Reza Huston
Martin Pierce
Saeed Tabor
Steve Avila
Eric Harvey
Fred Kitchens
Nikolay Ushakov
Rathin Rathinasamy
Marilyn Chalupa
Rebecca VanMeter-Brown