Thread by @ChrisMarsicano

Today @DavidsonCollege announced our next President, @DougAHicks. Hicks is a @DavidsonAlums, @DukeU and @Harvard graduate, and the Dean of @EmoryOxford.

His appointment is more than meets the eye… THREAD

davidson.edu/news/2022/04/2…

1/14

Our current president, @CarolQuillen, is @DavidsonCollege’s first female president and first non-alum in the role since 1957. I am thankful for her tremendous leadership and for pushing us to innovate, diversify, and focus on equity. I will miss her.

2/14
davidson.edu/news/2021/08/0…

While I have LOVED @CarolQuillen’s approach to leadership, some older, more conservative members of the @DavidsonCollege community have disagreed with some of (what I think are positive) changes under her leadership.

nationalreview.com/corner/resista…

3/14

For instance, some criticized the college’s decision to remove its requirement that the President be a member of the PCUSA.

So the decision to appoint a white, male, alum ordained PCUSA minister as President may feel like a “win” for the old guard.

charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-…
4/14

BUT WAIT!

If you actually take a look at @DougAHicks’s work over his career, you’ll find he has a long track record of equity-focused scholarship in religion and economics aligned with small “l” liberal principles.

5/14

Start by going back to his @DavidsonCollege Econ Department thesis from 1990: @DougAHicks studied poverty alleviation in the Charlotte community. His dissertation was on inequality. He literally wrote the book on inequality and Christian ethics.

amazon.com/Inequality-Chr…

6/14

Hicks has argued that Christians have a moral and theological obligation to combat inequality, saying “we must strive to create social, economic, and political conditions under which all persons can realize their human dignity as moral equals.”

7/14

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

His concern about inequality isn't just theological. He put his @DavidsonCollege Econ degree to good use, proposing a new measure to assess development after learning the UNDP’s Human Development Index didn't account for systemic inequality.

8/14

ophi.org.uk/wp-content/upl…

Hicks also developed a Hunger Index to help assess the severity of hunger in a given country.

9/14

files.hungerreport.org/reports/hunger…

Hicks is a strong supporter of free speech rights... but also civility, writing, "I believe in free speech, but I also believe that our speech should be worth expressing... We need to utter words worthy of our community."

10/14

richmond.com/news/speech-sh…

He has vehemently defended religious minorities and pluralism. He argued opposition to the “Mosque at Ground Zero” aka Park51/Cordoba Initiative project demonstrated a “failure to lead” among non-profit and religious leaders in the @washingtonpost.

11/14

views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/gue…

Hicks even argued in favor of student activism! He wrote in 2016, “…campus protests are a natural and healthy expression of college life... students are thinking about what they are learning, and... applying that knowledge to the world they know.”

12/14

universitybusiness.com/are-you-ready-…

So what does this all mean? @DavidsonCollege just hired a pro-activism, pro-free-speech, pro-religious pluralism, anti-hunger, anti-inequality President with an incredible track record of success who integrates faith and economics in ways that serve the public interest.

13/14

Hard to see appointment of @DougAHicks as anything other than an “everyone wins” scenario. I have every reason to believe he'll continue to advance the cause of equity, and be able to translate that goal into language of those who have bristled at the concept in the past.

14/14

@threadreaderapp unroll please!