Reinstate Kim Bridgford as WCU Poetry Center Director

Something is certainly fishy about this and I for one would like more information from the university!

Kim Bridgford's professionalism is unmatched. She brought a vision of inclusiveness and diversity to the conference, respecting all poets and poetic traditions, and she maintained the emphasis on teaching craft poetry, especially form, meter, and narrative. By leaving the Poetry Center Director's position vacant with no plans to appoint an interim director, West Chester University shows bad faith, endangering the Poetry Center's continued existence. Likewise, the notion of a year's hiatus threatens the continuity of the WCU Poetry Conference (and the cancellation of the first Women’s Leadership Summit planned for this November may never happen at WCU detracting from the university's prestige and reputation). The possibility of running a Poetry Center and Conference with a committee of full-time and part-time adjunct English faculty "volunteers" is a bad administrative idea that would lead to poor results because these faculty are already teaching full loads. Finally, once the WCU administration settles these matters and reveals its true intent for the future of a vibrant Poetry Center and Poetry Conference, there is no guarantee that the poets will come back in 2016 to spend their money at WCU. The possibility of a boycott is very real.

I add my admiration for Kim Bridgford as poet, scholar, editor, and invaluable director of the WCU Poetry Center.

Shocking. What do you have to hide?

Dr. Bridgford's work on each project she undertakes has been exemplary pioneering and poetry-affirming. What an ill starred action to remove her from her directorship of the West Chester Conference. Re instate Dr. Bridgford and apologize for wronging the community Dr. Bridgford serves so unselfishly

I am writing in support of Kim Bridgford. I have participated in the Poetry Center and Conference for some fifteen years running, as a participant, faculty, and Visiting Poet. This year's anniversary conference seemed a successful celebration of 20 years since its founding. Kim has in my opinion kept the unique focus and flavor of the conference while positioning it for continuation into future decades. I was thus bewildered and dismayed to learn of Kim's sudden removal and the conference's cancellation. I hope more information will be forthcoming. For my part, I would qualify the last sentence of this petition--it's hard to imagine a more welcoming place for us than West Chester. But many of us are at a loss as to these sudden and inexplicable changes.

Alas, it WAS a wonderful conference...

Sam--Kay Ryan is listed as a "Poet-in-Residence" at the WCU Poetry Center in 2013, and Anne Stevenson the same, in 2011. I know they were both keynote speakers years earlier, when Mike was the Director of the Conference. I didn't know about the "Poet-in-Residence" program. Did you? It's supposed to be Paul Muldoon this year. I guess that's been cancelled.

the disgraceful way in which Dr. Bridgford was arbitrarily and capriciously dismissed exemplifies the worst political pettiness of academe. Having spent over $10,000 in nine years at West Chester, I hope the university takes the poets' and scholars' objections to her removal quite seriously.

I wholeheartedly support this petition. I have attended the conference for the past fifteen years, and it has made a huge contribution to my professional life as a writer and teacher, and to my personal life as well. I believe Kim Bridgford has done an excellent job as Director.

Kim Bridgford should be allowed to resume her good work. The sudden and opaque nature of her removal from the position of Poetry Center Director raises vastly more questions about WCU than about Dr. Bridgford.

I wouldn't be where I am today without Kim Bridgford, nor would many others. Even as a writer, no words are sufficient. Do not allow yourselves to lose her as Director; it would truly be a loss from which you would never recover.