Letter completely wrong about Snider

The following is my personal opinion and not that of Montana State University-Northern nor any of its other employees.

Reference to letter to editor Feb. 28 which presents itself as a “challenge” to Professor John Snider but is actually a fact-free, logically challenged personal attack on the man.

The Feb. 28 letter claims Snider has never written anything positive about Northern in HDN. A quick look at the archives shows that this is the first of many false claims the letter makes. For a comprehensive list of Snider’s many positive professional achievements at Northern email me at [email protected]

The Feb. 28 letter continues, “Nor has he presented any ideas or sparks or willingness to take … leadership.” Wrong again. I have been working with John for 24 years and during that time he has had at least 50 excellent ideas for Northern none of which have merited the slightest consideration from our administrations. These have included, English major, English master’s, writing across the curriculum.

As to leadership, Snider has served admirably as the faculty union president, has served on the union negotiating team for many years and has been a leading voice in many instances for free speech at Northern.

The Feb. 28 letter positions Snider on the “side line” at Northern, but it’s the writer of this letter who occupies that position. For the last 29 years John has been in the middle of things at Northern positively affecting the vast majority of students (2,500-plus) he’s taught and earning much respect from his colleagues.

As a professor, it’s not John’s job to improve conditions at the dorms or recruit students — part of the letter’s “challenge.” The university pays people in excess of $250K to perform these tasks. The letter offers the implicit notion that if someone identifies a problem, he should be in charge of fixing it. Given this reasoning,  when I criticized the football team after last season’s  93-19 loss to Tech I should have named myself Northern’s head coach.

I actually disagree with Snider about the football stadium, but his reservations are well-considered and not necessarily negative. Another professor in the article that the Feb. 28 letter references seems just as “negative” as Snider about the stadium, if not more so. There are far more positives from Snider in the recent news article about the stadium than there are in the Feb. 28 letter.

With every Snider utterance about campus or community issues comes the he-hates-Northern-brigade. I’m sick of it. I’ve been working in higher education for 40 years and John is a guy who exemplifies the word “professor” for me. He hates Northern? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Steve Hesske

Havre