The Lexington Herald-Leader notes that Wendell Berry has
express[ed] his displeasure when his university, the one where he both studied and taught, crawls in bed with an industry that blasts mountains apart, fills adjacent valleys with rubble and destroys or pollutes waterways in the pursuit of profit.
UK — indeed, the whole state of Kentucky — endured a few days as the butt of a national joke after the school’s trustees agreed to paste “Wildcat Coal Lodge” on an unnecessary new basketball dormitory in exchange for donation of the $7 million construction cost.
Now, we’re seeing a more serious consequence of the decision to sell the university’s soul — a severing of ties between one of Kentucky’s most esteemed men of letters and the state’s flagship institution of higher education…
He’s taken his brain and gone home. Or in search of a university.
***************************
“A heartbreaking thing for me.” — Berry talks about his repudiation of UK.