Editor’s Note: The Daily News publishes Letters to the Editor with minimal copy edits and provides a headline only if the author does not provide one. The views expressed in letters do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. We reserve the right to withhold submitted letters depending on the content. Letters should be approximately 500 words and sent to editor@bsudailynews.com. 

To the Editor: 

We at Ball State are aware of the unfortunate incident that occurred on our campus. One of the participants was Dr. Shaheen Borna.

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Dr. Shaheen Borna has been a dedicated faculty member over the past 35+ years. He has been an outstanding researcher, teacher and has spent countless hours on committees and serving students. In fact, there has been no faculty member during his tenure who has spent more time on the Ball State campus than Dr. Borna. Over his career he has spent many evenings and weekends working on his research, teaching, and in service to the University. This has been witnessed by many of his colleagues.  A few years ago Dr. Borna was recognized as Ball State’s Outstanding Professor.

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Dr. Borna chose to handle the situation by his understanding of the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities (See appendix Q in the BSU Students Rights handbook), others thought the situation should have been handled differently. For those of you who do not know Dr. Borna, please don’t judge him on this one act. We all have events in our lives, if we had them to do over again, we would have handled them differently.

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We are all committed to learn from this unfortunate incident and provide an inclusive and supportive environment for each and every student at Ball State. After discussion with Dr. Borna following the incident, and in our extensive professional experience with him, we believe Dr. Borna shares that commitment, as well. 

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As such, the following faculty wish to express their continued support to Dr. Borna as a colleague and many as his friend.

Ramon A. Avila

Maoyong Fan

Deva Rangarajan

Jensen Zhao

Noah Koontz

James McClure

Tung Liu

Thomas Baird

Ann Reichle

Jessica Zeiss

Lisa Goodpaster

Russ Wahlers

Stanley Osweiler

Maria Tobar

Danny Spindler

Cecil Bohanon

Joseph Chapman

Gail Stautamoyer

Matt Marvel

Michael G. Goldsby

Norm VanCott

James Lowry

Thomas Harris

Reza Huston

Martin Pierce

Saeed Tabor

Steve Avila

Eric Harvey

Fred Kitchens

Nikolay Ushakov

Rathin Rathinasamy

Marilyn Chalupa

Rebecca VanMeter-Brown

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