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While I may be inclined to agree with the general premise of The Daily Sentinel’s May 5 editorial, “CSU creates a PC hurricane,” I take great exception to the assertion that Dr. Gray’s forecasts are “among CSU’s few claims to fame.” The statement is rooted in either ignorance or laziness, neither of which should be acceptable for a newspaper’s editors when writing an opinion piece.
Ignorance, in and of itself, may be acceptable, but being too lazy to do a little research is not. Of course, it is hard to understand how editors can be so ignorant that they are not aware of many of CSU’s “claims to fame.”
The paper has featured many articles about the wonderful contributions of CSU extension agents and research stations in the Grand Valley over the years. The work done by these CSU associates is certainly a “claim to fame.” And, it is hard to understand how anyone who lives in Colorado could not be aware that the university’s veterinary teaching program is widely recognized as one of the best in the nation (ranked second by U.S. News and World Report).
CSU is also recognized as a world leader in infectious disease research and has a top-ranked engineering program. The Sentinel’s editors could find out about dozens of other “claims to fame” that CSU can be identified with simply by looking at the CSU Internet Web site at www.colostate.edu. It would have taken five or 10 minutes to see that that statement is poorly thought out and flat out wrong. Or, it would probably be very simple to identify and interview CSU alumni in the Grand Valley who would be happy to enlighten you.
In addition, the snide comment about Dr. Gray being the only recognizable name on the CSU staff other than the football coach doesn’t add anything to your editorial. The same could be said for numerous major universities across the nation. All of them have famous staff members in their own endeavors depending on whom you ask. There are many government and industry leaders that would name many CSU faculty, staff and/or students who they recognize as individuals who are foremost in their chosen fields.
The editors should consider printing an apology to the university and to the thousands of CSU alumni that find your opinion and choice of words offensive. You should be ashamed of being so lazy and callous. I would suggest that you could make amends by highlighting just a few of CSU’s claims to fame in some in-depth, well-researched and well-written, articles to be completed in the near future.
MITCHEL W. LITTLE
Windsor, Colo.
One Response to “Sentinel editorial misses mark on CSU”
Posted May 7th, 2008 at 4:34 pm Login to Send PM Report this comment
Although a graduate of the University of Colorado (our state’s premier public university), I tend to agree with the author. I too, thought the Sentinel editorial was condescending and inaccurate. Their unflattering editorial contrasts with the Sentinel’s always “glowing” assessment of Mesa State College. It you believe what the Sentinel says about our local college/community college/vocational school, one might think we have a “Harvard of the West” in our midst instead of a “lunch bucket” school which caters to “lunch bucket” students, most of whom are destined for “lunch bucket” careers as either high level blue collar or low level white collar workers.
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