Koreen Wallis Bowers is apparently the new conservative voice that helps the alumni association indicate balanced coverage in the alumni magazine [Letters, May–June 2005, May–June 2006, and November–December 2006]. At what point does balanced coverage override the need for objective assessment of opinions?

Minnesota magazine may very well be reporting on global warming more than other relevant topics. However, no other issue in history has likely been studied and scrutinized on a consensus basis as much as the science on global warming. Scientifically, detractors are approaching the realm of those who believe, but can’t produce evidence, that the earth is 6,000 years old. However, the media insists on giving equal time to the small minority, which tells the wrong story to the public.

Bowers mixes uncited research and politics, taken as fact, and would do well to read http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics [an independent environmental journalism Web site] on how to talk to climate change skeptics.

Mike Taylor (M.S. ’02)
Mount Rainier, Maryland

Rag Parade?

Regarding “Hip Parade” [November–December 2006]: Isn’t it difficult enough to finance attendance at the U without paying real money for clothes that look like they escaped from a rag bag?

Ethel Demaree (B.S. ’52)
Robbinsdale, Minnesota

Books, not Jocks

The ad for the University Bookstore on page 6 [November–December 2006] sums up what is horribly wrong with the U of M these days. Remember when bookstores sold books, not jock memorabilia?! We are shown a mindless cheerleader. A bookstore is not a cheerleader. A university is not dumb jocks and fashion plates. Academics are not a part of the University; they are the real University.

D.L. Owen
Glenwood, Minnesota

Bad Science, Bad Public Policy

I have read Margaret Sughrue Carlson’s appeal to U alumni to support state funding for the Biomedical Sciences Research Facilities Authority [September–October and November–December 2006]. I am writing to let you know that I do not support this funding, I will urge my legislators to vote against it, and I will urge my family and friends to do the same.

Human embryonic stem cells have yet to produce a cure for anything, and Dr. Meri Firpo admits as much on http://buzz.smm.org [a Science Museum of Minnesota forum].

The primary reason I oppose this research is that it destroys human lives. Dr. Firpo and Dr. Catherine Verfaillie, indeed anyone well-versed in biology or medicine, should know that each one of us has retained our individual identity even from the time we were single cells. Dr. Jerome Lejeune, Nobelist in genetics, noted that a single cell contains enough information to fill 40 sets (not volumes, sets) of the Encyclopedia Britannica. This is not religious dogma but scientific fact.

I see no excuse for this research. It’s bad science, so it’s bad public policy, and I can’t in good conscience support it.

Robert G. Wirth (B.A. ’70)
Minneapolis

Athletics Competes with Academics

In Denny Schulstad’s and Margaret Carlson’s columns [November–December 2006], they ask alumni to contact their state legislators to support the creation of a Biomedical Sciences Research Facilities Authority. Two years ago, the University asked us to help it reverse a 30-year trend of declining state appropriations. Along with many other alumni, I wrote letters to state legislators and met with them in their offices. We achieved our objective.

Last year, having barely turned the corner on increasing appropriations for its academic programs, the University went to the legislature seeking half of the $248 million cost to build a football stadium. At the same time, the University submitted a proposal for $206 million in bonds for its academic facilities. The University also submitted a separate proposal to authorize a $300 million bond fund for a biomedical facilities authority.

The scoreboard for the University at the conclusion of the “stadium session” showed that a football program with an abysmal graduation rate was a clear winner at the legislature. The state approved $137 million in bonding for the stadium that will be retired at the rate of more than $10 million per year for 25 years. The loser was the capital request for academic facilities. The legislature slashed the request from $206 million to $116 million. The separate proposal for the biomedical facilities authority never made it out of committee. [The capital request that was approved did include $40 million for one biomedical building.]

It was clear early in the session that the capital request for academic facilities was in jeopardy. Yet the University devoted much of its time and effort to secure approval of bonds for a stadium. A year after recruiting alumni to support the academic mission of the University, the Board of Regents squandered the good will created by the personal efforts of those alumni.

The regents never bothered to consult with parents—the people who bear the burden of the huge tuition increases that are the consequence of the no-new-taxes shell game played at the legislature during the past four years. If you asked parents whether they would want hundreds of millions of dollars spent on (1) academic facilities, where their children would prepare for their futures, or (2) a football stadium, where their children might watch six games each year, their answer should be painfully obvious.

There is something more toxic in the stadium issue than the land the University dumped on the state. It is the example we are giving to our children of the priorities in life.

If the regents agree that a biomedical facilities authority would play a crucial role in the future well-being of our state, then they should request the legislature to direct that the $250 million that the state will pay to retire the stadium debt should be used instead for biomedical facilities. The raison d’etre for the University is the dissemination and the advancement of knowledge. Let us now resolve that the big business of major college sports will no longer be allowed to interfere with those objectives.

Michael W. McNabb (B.A. ’71, J.D. ’74)
Burnsville, Minnesota

Corrections and Clarifications

In the November–December 2006 U News, Minnesota reported an inaccuracy about the structure of the University’s new Institute on the Environment. The institute is interdisciplinary and is not located within a particular college but reports to the provost.

Also in U News, an item noted that the Law School’s class of 2009 is the most diverse in the school’s history. That statement was intended to include the students’ diverse geographic origins, educational backgrounds, and other distinctions, not just their gender breakdown and racial or ethnic identities.

The editors regret any confusion.

Please write to: Letters to the Editor, Minnesota Magazine, McNamara Alumni Center, 200 Oak St. SE, Suite 200, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Or e-mail: fling003@umn.edu. Letters will be edited for length, style, and clarity.