``Not everybody loves Cary Nelson, but I think the vast majority of people respect Cary Nelson,'' said Cat Warren, who has served as AAUP's North Carolina chapter president and has known Nelson since graduate school.
She admires Nelson, though she disagrees with some of his decisions.
``The degree to which a gentler, kinder Cary Nelson would be able to herd the flock I think is probably a myth,'' she said. ``Faculty don't herd well.''
To succeed, Nelson will need to sell AAUP membership to a younger generation of faculty who barely know the group, and are typically more focussed on issues in their own fields than in the professoriate at large.
Princeton's Katz, who recently rejoined the AAUP after a long absence, said a measure of Nelson's success will be his ability to attract more people like him who care about academic freedom but had left the group when it became more of a labor union. (Asked how many Princeton faculty belong to AAUP, Katz answered ``I'd be surprised if there are six.'')
Ernst Benjamin, recruited by Nelson last year as general secretary, says Nelson's tendencies as a ``born rebel'' sometimes run up against the constraints of running an organization. But he insists the energy he provides is also essential.
``It's like poetry, isn't it?'' Benjamin said, comparing Nelson's AAUP and scholarly work. ``You have to have creativity and you have to have discipline.''
And Benjamin said anyone who had produced 25 books, as Nelson has, ``has to have some discipline.''
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