PEMS Approval Documents
HOW THE FREEDOM CENTER GOT THE FACULTY SENATE TO APPROVE A NEW DEPARTMENT AND THEN SUBVERTED THE SENATE BY ADDING “POLITICAL ECONOMY” TO THE NEW DEPARTMENT’S NAME AND WITHDRAWING ITS FUNDING
5/23/17 SBS Proposal to Create a Department of Moral Sciences - The Freedom Center, through UA’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS), proposed to create a new Department of Moral Sciences to administer 1) the new PPEL BA degree, 2) a dual-credit high school course, and 3) a PPE Masters Degree to be proposed in the future. This proposal says the new department would be primarily funded by direct line-item money coming to the Freedom Center from the Arizona State Legislature. [The Freedom Center later withheld the legislative funding from the department after UA moved the Freedom Center to the Office of Research, Innovation & Impact in 2019.] The proposal also says the name of the Masters degree would not use the words “political” or “economy” without permission from UA’s Economics Department and School of Government and Public Policy. (See the bottom of page 2.)
8/28/17 Faculty Senate Agenda re Approval of the Department of Moral Sciences - See Agenda Item 11 in this link.
8/28/17 The Faculty Senate Passed the proposal to create the Department of Moral Sciences - with 9 abstentions (!) - Freedom Center Director David Schmidtz did his best to obscure what the new department would teach. You have to read it to believe it! (See Agenda Item 11.)
9/27-29/17 ABOR Agenda re Approval of the Department Of Moral Sciences - On 9/27/17, UA asked the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) to “approve its new Moral Sciences academic unit.”
Request to ABOR for Approval of a Department of Political Economy & Moral Science [PEMS] Executive Summary of Request for PEMS Approval - In this Executive Summary, the request for ABOR’s approval is reframed as an amendment to the name of the new department – which allowed the Freedom Center to insert the words “Political Economy” into the name of the new department. This ploy angered two dozen UA faculty members who do research in political economy, but who were not consulted about the name change. Page 2 says funding for the new department would come from the State and donors, but does not specify which donors (although the form requests the “source”). On page 3, Professor Schmidtz states that Adam Smith favored free markets and public schooling because they would both help the poor. In reality, libertarians want to privatize public schools.
ABOR Academic & Student Affairs Committee Recommends Approval of PEMS - See bottom of page 3 and top of page 4 in the link.
ABOR Approval of PEMS - The deed was done.