UW adopts new principles regarding free expression and constructive dialogue

Early this month, the University of Wyoming adopted a presidential working group’s statement of principles regarding free expression and plans to move forward with efforts to implement the group’s recommendations.

In a message to the UW campus earlier this fall, the University’s President, Ed Seidel, committed to work with members of the Freedom of Expression, Intellectual Freedom and Constructive Dialogue Working Group and others “to ensure that we undertake a serious and sustained effort to support a culture of free expression and respectful discourse on this campus.”

The administration is now moving forward with the working group’s recommendations after votes of support for the statement of principles from the Faculty Senate, the Staff Senate, the Associated Students of UW, the president’s cabinet and academic deans. 

One of the working group’s co-chairs — Martha McCaughey, who serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Sociology — will lead the effort with the president.

“I want to thank this group for a very significant body of outstanding work. Further, I appreciate the input received from many of you over the summer and this semester regarding the working group’s findings,” the president said in his message to campus. “We are now moving forward to implement a number of its recommendations.”

According to UW, the new “Statement of the University of Wyoming Principles” was developed by the working group last spring following consultation with external stakeholders in Wyoming and review of programs and policies at other universities; historical reports on freedom of expression and institutional neutrality in the nation; accreditation criteria; UW’s regulation on academic freedom; Wyoming’s Constitution; and the “Code of the West,” adopted as the Cowboy State’s code of ethics in 2010.

“Implementation of these recommendations will require significant additional work, some of which can be folded into ongoing work associated with our strategic plan,” Seidel said in his message. “This will include communication to campus through a website that will maintain a current status report of key actions being taken, and planned, to achieve these goals.”

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