Your help is needed to create an internet howl of protest sufficient to reverse a decision that will be a blow to UT and a setback for a quality education.

UT's McNair Scholars program is a superb resource. It takes kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who have made it to college and helps them prepare for graduate education. It is one of the most successful McNair programs in the country, and each year it also does a regional conference of other similar programs. I have volunteered as a McNair mentor to a young scholar five times, and found it to be a phenomenal program.

Now the program may lose its federal money (called the TRIO program) because its 2008 application was three minutes late. UT's Office of Research Administration blames a slow link in the grants.gov site. Sadly, so far all attempts to correct have fallen on deaf ears.

Today I visited the local offices of Congressman Duncan, and Senators Alexander and Corker. All shake their heads, but seem resigned to accept the pronouncements of low-level persons who merely cite procedure, or who claim the money is already distributed (when they really mean they don't want to change their allocation formula).

You can call these offices, too. However, I recommend the direct approach, making an appeal for reason and human judgment. You can make that appeal to the program administrator, Dr. Linda Byrd-Johnson (Linda.byrd-johnson@ed.gov, phone 202-502-7729). I recommend politeness but persistence, and spreading the word to other internet sites so we can magnify the message so it will not be ignored.
--Mark Harmon, Knox County Commissioner and UT associate professor of journalism and electronic media

News Sentinel editor Jack McElroy has a good blog entry requesting letters to legislators, writing to oppose the proposed weakening of the state Open Meetings law.

Link...

Here is my letter:

Dear Senator Randy McNally,

I am a Knox County Commissioner, and have served in that role since shortly after my election in August 2006. Let me state as firmly as I can that the Open Meetings Act DOES NOT need to be weakened by adding a provision that only a quorum can violate it. In the aftermath of the abuses that took place this year in Knox County we should be looking to strengthen the Open Meetings Act, not weaken it.

One of the great temptations in this job is reflected in the phrase “my district.” The district seat is, of course, not yours. It is on loan from the public, and the public has the right to know what you are doing in its name, and for the sake of the broader community. That ethical right of the public to know what its legislators are doing becomes a sad joke if public meetings only rubber stamp the collective result of deliberations done outside of public view.

I spent more than three hours on the witness stand in the recent Knox County lawsuit, specifying in great detail what followed when the commission majority opted for a closed, insider system. The public does not object to commissioners arguing with one another, attempting to persuade one another, and compromising with one another. The public only rightly insists these acts be done in public sessions and meetings.

Your committee has heard vast overstatements that commissioners no longer can talk to one another or cannot attend the same events as district mates. Nonsense. The current act’s prohibition is on deliberation. If commissioners need to deliberate, they can do so in regular or special meetings or properly announced workshops. District mates can announce a gathering in their district and talk to one another and the public as much as they want.

Please resist the current effort and all efforts to weaken the Open Meetings Act.

Cordially yours, Mark D. Harmon, Knox County Commission, District 2, Seat A