As a semi-retired faculty member and former SUNY Cobleskill dean, I read with interest the front page-published column "One and done at Cobleskill," July 19, regarding a former university employee's claims, and then the follow-up news article almost hidden inside the Capital Region section ("Whistle-blower loses case," July 20).
What is lost by focusing on this one case is the incredible amount of good work done there. To paraphrase Times Union editor Rex Smith on a recent WAMC broadcast of "The Media Project,'' "You can have 5,000 good landings at the Albany airport and we do not usually report this. However, an airline crash is newsworthy."
I submit that the dismissal of the suit against the college is equal in journalistic importance to the suit itself. The damage done to the college by the placement of the first article was not sufficiently reversed by the burying of the second.
SUNY Cobleskill serves as a portal to many highly competitive and contemporary technology fields. Not generally known to the public is that SUNY Cobleskill also serves as a de facto university entree for students with no community college in their counties. As such, we try to give every opportunity for success to students whose academic background was limited by the abhorrent conditions of poverty in their communities. It may take students longer to graduate (many are single parents), but we strive to help them do so.
We invite members of the public to visit our campus and our website to see for themselves the impressive array of unique programs and facilities that helped garner our recognition as one of the best regional colleges in the Northeast (www.cobleskill.edu/news/).
Michael J. Murphy, Ph.D.
Distinguished Teaching Professor, Emeritus
Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Former Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences
State University of New York
Cobleskill
