Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
The Ohio Senate has approved a six-member Academic Council to lead Wright State University’s state-mandated Center for Civics, Culture and Workforce, who will soon begin working toward their goal of protecting conservative ideals on campus.
The Senate vote was along party lines with Democrats dissenting, critical of the initiative.
The new Academic Council’s first task will be to hire a director for Wright State’s Civics, Culture and Workforce center, according to state Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland. Cirino is a driving advocate behind the state’s recent actions to set up five institutes throughout the state to preserve and protect conservative ideals on college campuses at a cost of about $24 million over the next two years.
“That’s (the council’s) main task, and they can certainly have some ongoing responsibilities relative to monitoring how the program is going, the director can report back on progress and that sort of thing,” Cirino said. “But it’s not going to be a terrible amount of work for these board members on an ongoing basis.”
Per state law, council members were nominated by the WSU board of trustees on June 14 before going to the Senate for approval.
They are Wright State’s Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer Greg Sample; Chair of the School of Social Sciences and International Studies Laura Luehrmann; Vice President of Finance, Planning and Analysis Burhan Kawosa; Rick Schwartz, chairman of Winsupply; retired Lt. Gen. Tom Owen of ZaiStar Consulting; and Mark Ridenour, the incoming chair of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
