More than two dozen current and retired faculty members at St. Vincent College released a letter to President Bush yesterday criticizing his policies and expressing the hope that his visit to Latrobe next week to address graduating seniors "turns your heart."

The letter, signed by 29 current and past faculty, opens with a promise "of Benedictine hospitality ... in welcoming you to our campus. We honor your presence as we would any visitor."

But it goes on to say, "Just as we will welcome your presence, we have the opportunity to welcome those who protest your visit. ... [O]ur sense of caring and community compels us to share our misgivings about your policies."

	Related coverage St. Vincent will welcome President Bush Open letter to George W. Bush on the Occasion of his Commencement Address at St. Vincent College in pdf format

The letter criticized Mr. Bush on several points, including the war in Iraq, the economy, the environment and free speech.

"A just democracy must cultivate and defend open, free dialogue," the letter said. "However, your presidency has continually engaged in fear-mongering and threats that diminish the value of discourse that colleges and universities cherish."

The letter drew a rebuke from St. Vincent College President Jim Towey, who with Archabbot Douglas Nowicki invited Mr. Bush to be the commencement speaker.

Mr. Towey said he has "gone overboard accommodating voices of dissent." He pointed to two meetings with faculty members and a student-sponsored forum at which the invitation was discussed.

"They have to realize that enough is enough, and our students want the focus on them, not on politics," Mr. Towey said last night. "We're a week out, and the spotlight should be on our graduating seniors. Let [the faculty] fight their political battles on another day. Not on graduation day."

Mr. Towey said the faculty members had already voted on the invitation to Mr. Bush and that the majority supported it. The letter, he said, appears to be from "disgruntled faculty members."

"The focus should be on our graduates,not on a minority group of upset faculty members," he said. "At some point in time, the minority point of view has to respect the right of the majority."

Dr. Dennis D. McDaniel, an associate professor of English at St. Vincent College and one of the authors of the letter, said the faculty members who endorsed it "don't pretend to represent the faculty as a whole" but felt it was important to "take the opportunity to show how Catholic social teaching provides an alternative to those policies."

Dr. McDaniel said while other faculty members at St. Vincent may oppose the president's visit, only tenured faculty members "with greater job security" were invited to sign the letter.

"This is a sensitive situation," he said, "and while we understand that President Towey and the archabbot are very respectful of all viewpoints, we felt, as senior members of the faculty, that it would be irresponsible for us to put the untenured members of the faculty in a position like that.

"There's no fear of retribution, but when you're talking about people's jobs, you have to have the utmost sensitivity."

Dr. McDaniel said he was not aware of any plans for protests during the commencement, although the letter expressed the hope "that the college will not turn them away on May 11."

"If anything were done," he said, "it would be done respectfully, in a way that shows respect for our students, our archabbot, our president and our institution."

Mr. Towey said he was aware that Mr. Bush, in a commencement address last week at Miami Dade College in Florida used the occasion to make a political point on immigration. He said he had spoken with representatives of the White House and expected no such statement during the president's visit to Latrobe.

"This is going to be what you would expect a commencement speech to be," he said. "It's going to be about our graduating seniors."