Writer Wendell Berry says the University of Kentucky’s decision to name a new dorm the Wildcat Coal Lodge “puts an end to his association with the school.”

From the Herald-Leader:

“The University’s president and board have solemnized an alliance with the coal industry, in return for a large monetary ‘gift,’ granting to the benefactors, in effect, a co-sponsorship of the University’s basketball team,” Berry wrote in the typewritten letter. “That — added to the ‘Top 20′ project and the president’s exclusive ‘focus’ on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — puts an end to my willingness to be associated in any way officially with the University.”

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Berry, among the most revered of Kentucky writers and a former recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, told the university “it is now obviously wrong, unjust and unfair, for your space and work to be encumbered by a collection of papers that I no longer can consider donating to the University.”

The papers, which measure 60 cubic feet in volume and would fill about 100 boxes, remain at UK while Berry negotiates their transfer to the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort. He said the papers include letters he has received over the years, drafts of various books and corrected proofs.

Berry, 75, said UK’s push to become a “Top 20″ research university has caused it to stray from its land-grant university obligation to address Kentucky’s problems.

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In a statement, UK spokesman Jimmy Stanton said the university was disappointed by Berry’s decision to pull his personal papers, particularly because UK has purchased a significant portion of his works, which are in the UK libraries archives’ permanent collection.

“We do regret that our students and researchers who wish to study his life and works will now be unable to access all of his previously donated works in one archive that contains the papers of many of Kentucky’s greatest writers,” Stanton said.

UK President Lee T. Todd Jr. was made aware of Berry’s letter, but UK archives director Deirdre Scaggs responded to Berry on behalf of the university in late January.

“Our commitment to you was demonstrated by our purchase of a significant portion of your collection,” Scaggs wrote on Jan. 20. “… By your recent decision, UK Libraries suffers an irreplaceable loss, but it is the students and researchers who will now pay the price.”

UK students previously protested the Coal Lodge as well.

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