At a time when signs of respect for law enforcement have become scarce, three Auburn University professors expressed their appreciation in abundance.
On their own dime, Auburn faculty members Beth Davis-Sramek, Dave Ketchen and Glenn Richey spent lunchtime Friday providing meals for Auburn police officers as, what they termed, private citizens and grateful members of the community.
The gesture from the trio follows weeks of controversy involving one member of the university’s faculty who issued numerous expletive-laden public statements essentially calling for the end of police departments and questioning the integrity of its members. Members of the university’s English department subsequently opposed any disciplinary measures against their colleague.
Davis-Sramek, Ketchen and Richey moved forward with their plans to honor members of local law enforcement, undaunted by the rhetoric from other members of the faculty.
“As professors in the business college, we’ve been troubled by bombastic rhetoric casting the police as ‘instruments of violence on behalf of capital,’” said Davis-Sramek, Gayle Parks Forehand professor of supply chain management, in a statement to Yellowhammer News. “These ill-conceived Marxist notions stand in direct contrast to an indisputable reality – capitalism is the only economic system in history that has lifted billions of people out of poverty.”
The Auburn Creed, written by George Petrie in 1943, includes the line: “I believe in obedience to law because it protects the rights of all.” This is sentiment Ketchen, the Harbert Eminent Scholar in Management, seemed to express.
“As a group, we were dismayed that vitriol was directed locally at our police,” he remarked. “The way to counter hate is love and love is what we are expressing with this lunch event. Without women and men who are willing to risk it all for citizens’ well-being, Auburn would not remain the loveliest village on the plains for long. The city of Auburn, and Lee County in general, are blessed to have fantastic law enforcement agencies full of dedicated professionals. We should never take that for granted. As a society, let’s put as much energy into celebrating the many good apples in blue as we are to holding the few bad apples accountable.”
Richey, who serves as Harbert eminent scholar in supply chain management, called for a greater respect for law enforcement given the difficulty of the jobs they perform.
“We seem to have lost our sense of civility in the U.S.,” observed Richey. “When people start vilifying ALL police, it becomes quite obvious that things have gone too far. These men and women work a job that is often thankless and dangerous, but always important. We need to spend more time thanking them.”
The professors were able to purchase 70 lunches on Friday.
The generosity displayed by Davis-Sramek, Ketchen and Richey is exactly the type of community involvement that Auburn Chief of Police Cedric Anderson and his department have strived to develop.
“We have really been pushing the importance of relationships this year through training, the contacts we make and every aspect of what we do in the community,” he told Auburn News. “I think this is just another step in improving the already terrific relationship that we have with the university community, so this to me is huge. I think you can see from the way the officers are responding that this is important to them, too.”
“They make a lot of sacrifices throughout the course of the day, the week; it’s a thankless job a lot of times. When someone takes the time to do what these individuals are doing, it’s almost overwhelming,” he concluded.
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Tim Howe is an owner of Yellowhammer Multimedia
