Flame Mail

Dear Mr. McEwen,

I am the University Librarian at Fresno State, a position I am relinquishing tomorrow due to retirement. I have worked with President Welty since he came here many years ago and am writing to say that your column today on him is grotesquely distorted and unfair, quite apart from you stretching a thin joke to the point of invisibility.

I know very little, and care less, about athletics, so I cannot comment on those comments of yours that pertain to them. However, I am very familiar with academics on this campus and in particular with the university's library. I have a specific comment and a general observation.

You accuse President Welty of "Renovating a [sic] library with money from a casino operator." The fact is that we are building what will be the finest academic library in California with money raised from an Education Bond passed in March 2004. That money would never have been available to this campus if it hadn't been for President Welty's strong support for the project and great political skills. The "casino operator"--the Table Mountain Rancheria--have given us money to (a) enhance the building; (b) to honor the long connection between them and the Helm Ranch (the site of today's campus), and (c) to honor their matriarch and her life long love of books and reading. You may not know that one of the chief duties of a university president in these times is fund raising, something at which President Welty has an outstanding record. How is it that his success at obtaining a major donation to enhance the most exciting project on this campus for years is to be held against him ? Perhaps you think that money raised, in part, from gambling is tainted? I refer you to George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara" for a thorough examination of that point.

More generally, I have been amazed, in the nearly 19 years I have lived here, at the persistence of the vendetta the Fresno bee has against this campus. This very day, The Bee has a column on a speech to be delivered by a Fresno State professor (B5, column 1) that cannot resist a snide little aside about "athletic travails." Where are all the articles about the many achievements in teaching, research, publishing, and service by the outstanding faculty of this university? Where are all the articles about the countless lives changed by this university and the accomplishments of our students and graduates? Above all, why is The Bee obsessed with the sideshow of collegiate athletics to the exclusion of the true purposes of a university?

Sincerely, Michael Gorman