Pipe Dream is celebrating its 63rd year as Binghamton University’s independent student newspaper. It started as the Colonial News in fall 1946 and has been going strong twice a week ever since. So we are taking a look back into the paper’s archives, at the people and events that have made the news over BU’s past 60 years.

Tuesday, Oct. 23, 1979

A Binghamton University professor arrested over the summer of 1979 for alleged arson faced a life sentence in a jail Guyana.

Dr. Walter Rodney, a then-professor of sociology and member of the Guyanese Workers People’s Alliance (WPA), was charged with setting ablaze the headquarters of the Guyanese Ministry of National Development in July 1979.

The WPA was a political party, whose members hoped to end the racially-based politics of the Guyana’s People’s National Congress, restore democracy and deal with the country’s economic problems. The party developed out of a five-year-old alliance of opposition groups.

“The WPA is a new force fighting to change the system,” said Monica Jardin, a then-BU grad student and friend of Rodney’s. “Many people are flocking to become members.”

According to the WPA, the building lit on fire had hosted election records which they claimed could aid their effort to gain power. They said Rodney would never want to destroy records vital to his party.

Jardin believed he was framed for the crime.

“The country has a history of bombing buildings and then accusing people,” she said.

According to Jardin, after Rodney’s arrest in the country, a general strike erupted.

She added that the charges were made to “smear Rodney’s reputation” and he was arrested because of his leadership in the WPA.

At the time of the article, Rodney was still held in Guyana, and though he had requested the University not intervene in the situation, the administration continued to show its support for his role as a professor.

Then-BU President Clifford D. Clark said Rodney was a “very much valued” member of the campus.

“He has a real ability to motivate,” said Donna Devoist, a former student of Rodney’s. “He served as an example to me of someone who can do both intellectual and political work.”

Rodney’s request for the University to maintain a low profile may have come from a telephone conversation recorded by the Guyanese government which was used against him as evidence in the case after he spoke to a California newspaper.

He anticipated coming back to BU by Nov. 5, 1979, but could not because his passport was confiscated.