Plenty to brag about

I’ve had a chance to page through the Fall/Winter magazine, and it looks FABULOUS!! I don’t have too much time to keep up with UConn, but the magazine is really full of interesting stories.

My husband is a Kings Point graduate (Merchant Marine Academy) and is always bragging when he reads his alumni newsletters about how great KP is and how talented the graduates are. UCONN magazine gives me PLENTY to brag about!

Juliette (Moehn) Brown ’91 (SAH)

Tulane story disappointing

Photo: Tulane University

I applaud your efforts to educate the UConn community about the stalled recovery in New Orleans. However, I am disappointed that UCONN would honor a university administrator whose post-Katrina “decisive leadership” earned his University a formal censure from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the organization that represents UConn faculty.

Among the report’s most troubling conclusions: “In decisions to terminate more than 200 faculty appointments on the grounds of financial exigency, the Tulane University administration made no meaningful distinction between tenured and non-tenured faculty members except in the terms of notice and/or severance pay.”

As a Tulane faculty member (2004–2007), I observed President Cowen insist to AAUP investigators throughout 2006 that he was strictly following Tulane’s faculty handbook, while he cautioned faculty that the handbook was advisory and unenforceable.

The AAUP declared him in violation of the AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and its Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

The University of Connecticut should be proud of how its alumni, students and faculty generously responded to the Gulf Coast tragedy. I hope the UConn community will continue to stay engaged in the region.

Donna Lee Van Cott,
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Connecticut

‘Politically charged’

Illustration by Darren Thompson

I was taken aback by David Yalof’s opinion piece masquerading as analysis in the Fall/Winter 2007 edition of UCONN magazine. Yalof’s article belongs on an editorial page.

Nonetheless, Yalof’s frequent use of politically charged adjectives and phrasing reveals strikingly his bias and disturbing lack of scholarly objectivity, which clearly paints his article an opinion piece, such as“extremely conservative,” “brimming with ideologues eager to vote the Conservative line,” “one-sided” and “radical calls to revolutionize doctrines.”

Frankly, I think you ought to label all future opinion articles in UCONN as such and, at the very least, include a disclaimer saying the thoughts expressed in such opinion pieces are the author’s alone.

The absence of such a notice and disclaimer is tacit editorializing, which I see as a departure from and contrary to UCONN magazine’s long and noble tradition of adhering to the highest journalistic standards.

James F. Blais Jr. ’81 (CLAS)

Editor’s Note: A box on the first page of the story indicated the article was an analysis by Prof. Yalof, who is a nationally recognized scholar on presidential politics.

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