Kennesaw State University President Dan Papp is standing by the university’s new provost despite arguments that a past literary work includes Marxist ideology and should disqualify him for the position.
Timothy Chandler had been criticized in a local newspaper recently for espousing Marxist ideas in a 1998 academic critique about university reform models he co-authored with a fellow Kent State professor. That professor, Walter James, went on to publish work alleging the Bush administration’s complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
After talking with Chandler about his 1998 work, “I am convinced that [Chandler] is neither Marxist nor anti-American, as some have alleged,” Papp said in a statement released Wednesday.
Chandler, the senior associate provost for academic affairs at Kent State University, was announced as Kennesaw State’s provost and vice president for academic affairs last month.
He called the attacks on his character, including the suggestion that he is undemocratic, baseless, according to the statement. He went on to say that he is “not inclined to withdraw from the provost position under the cloud of a Red scare.”
Chandler begins work at KSU in July. He will fill the vacancy created last year when former provost, Lendley Black, stepped down to become chancellor of the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
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