[The Montana Professor 16.2, Spring 2006 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]

Reply to Doug Giebel:

The Editorial Board would not have invited Presidents Dennison and Gamble to act as guest editors of our special issues on academic responsibility if its members had any doubt as to the standards they would apply in their judgments of a submission's suitability for publication. Our experience with both presidents gave us confidence that no otherwise worthy submission would be rejected simply because it included or implied some criticism of their actions. TMP has published articles that at least implied criticism of MUS administrations in general, and of President Dennison, in particular. See, for example my own "Notes on Academic Responsibility" and George Dennison's reply in the Winter 1998 issue, and Clarence E. Burns' "Privatization Revisited: A Review of Forms and Criticisms," Fall 2003.

Both presidents were fully aware of TMP's editorial policies when they accepted our invitation. Those policies, so far as they concern criticism of the Board of Regents, at least, were quite evident in the last two "Notes from the Editor's Desk" feature of the journal.

The Editorial Board must deal with conflicts of interest in preparing every issue we publish. We are all aware of the imprudence of biting the hand that holds the purse strings, signs promotion forms, and controls similar rewards. But avoiding conflicts of interest is not the only way to prevent their having harmful effects. One may also acknowledge them honestly and overcome them. That is the responsible way to deal with them, in the academic world and everywhere else.

--REW
Editor

[The Montana Professor 16.2, Spring 2006 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]