College President Offends Faculty With Photo Alongside “Hawthorn Hotties”
And the ESU Hawthorn Hotties greeted us next! pic.twitter.com/QtJm6lrxyY
— Marcia G. Welsh (@MarciaGWelsh) December 9, 2014
In our latest edition of What People Are Offended About on College Campuses, we travel to East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, located in the eponymous borough about two hours north of Philadelphia. And in this case, it’s not student groups but faculty members who are upset — by the school’s president.
At East Stroudsburg, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports faculty members are angry with a tweet showing president Marcia Welsh with the “Hawthorn Hotties.”
Welsh was delivering cookies to students in a dorm room. The shirtless male students are a group that do dances inspired from the movie Magic Mike in order to raise money for charitable causes. Faculty members questioned if the president was being insensitive. “In this heightened era of appropriate sexual behavior on college campuses, faculty and administration cannot condone any kind of somewhat questionable behavior related to sexuality,” English professor Nancy VanArsdale said.
The Patriot-News reports the debate is tied to the faculty’s ongoing feud with Welsh. She decided to eliminate the school’s music program, which will result in two tenured professors getting laid off.
Welsh defended the photo in a statement to the newspaper. “The students who refer to themselves as the ‘Hawthorn Hotties’ were raising money for the American Cancer Society,” she said. “To exploit the support of our students is not only an insult to them but a malicious disservice to the good work they do for our university and the community.”