To the Campus Community and Supporters of the History Department:
I would like to call your attention to a very important event to be held on the campus of CSULB next month: The President’s Forum on International Human Rights: Modern Genocides and Global Responsibility, for which information can be accessed at this link http://www.csulb.edu/president/humanrights/.
Unfortunately, given world events, such a conference is extraordinarily timely, and we urge our students of History to attend as many sessions as possible during the conference. Historians, in their examination of the past, can contribute significantly to definitions of genocide, help guide the quest for understanding of why such genocidal events have occurred, and in some small way promote tolerance and peaceful interactions by embracing diversity and difference.
However, similar to an event that the History Department and other campus entities sponsored last year, the Armenian Turkish Reconciliation Event, this year’s conference has already generated a storm of criticism, directed largely against two of our Departmental faculty members. Sadly, this criticism has taken the form of personal attacks that foment opposition based on a set of lies and falsities promulgated by opponents of one session, “Scholars in Conversation of the Armenian Genocide,” which is scheduled for Tuesday, February 12, 2008. Were these attacks not personal, impugning the professional reputation and character of our Departmental colleagues, we would not express such alarm; measured opposition can take the form of scholarly debate, without resort to intimidation, harassment, and blatant attacks on the integrity of our colleagues. But in this case, such scholarly debate has not occurred.
In light of the criticism of our colleagues, I have been asked to re-post my “Open Letter to the Campus Community,” which readers can access at this link: April 23, 2007 letter
Finally, I would like to stress that to attack personally one of us is to attack all of us, in the History Department, the College of Liberal Arts, the University, and the global community. I for one resent the libelous nature of these attacks, and am hereby calling for members of the University community to refrain from such egregious assaults on individual faculty members. Such personal attacks clearly contradict the mission and the core values of this University: to educate, to promote both diversity and integrity, and to serve our diverse students in a globally-engaged manner.
Sincerely,
Nancy Quam-Wickham, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of History
