‘Academe Gone Mad?’

Further to Diane Ravitch’s suggestion [“Academe Gone Mad?” Opinion, February 10, 2005] that universities not set aside departments controlled by aggrieved activists, another problem is the entire idea of lifetime tenure for these activists. Few Americans, not even newspaper editors and opinion columnists, have their positions guaranteed for life. What is so sacrosanct about a professor’s position?

Congress should legislate that no taxpayer funds should go to universities or colleges that grant lifetime tenure. Perhaps the states would follow suit. If there are professors who, as a result, fear to spout outrageous views, there are hundreds of privately financed institutions that will hire them. Taxpayers should not be obligated to support aggrieved activists in schools for a lifetime.

SEYMOUR YUSEM
Manhattan

Thanks for the great piece by Diane Ravitch. Everything boils down to one cogent thought: Academics used to teach us how to think – now they teach us what to think.

MARK LUNDEN
Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

‘Over Budget, One Year Late’

Re: “17% Over Budget, One Year Late,” Adam Piore, Page 1, February 9, 2005. The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is one of the busiest roadways in New York City and requires major rehabilitation. When this project was designed, it originally called for $15 million in additional work, which was unfortunately removed for budgetary reasons prior to bidding. As funding became available, the State Department of Transportation analyzed both separately bidding the necessary work, or adding it to the ongoing contract. It was found to be more efficient and less costly to add the work to the current project. Therefore, your analysis of the overruns, both in terms of cost and time, is incorrect.

Your readers are most likely aware of the benefits of this project, but it is my pleasure to discuss them. This section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is now safer and provides for a smoother and longer-lasting roadway designed for the traffic it handles. It has appropriate overhead clearance for trucks so they no longer hit overpasses and there are merging and diverging lanes where before there were none. In addition, the project features the following: shoulders where disabled vehicles may pull off so as not to block a travel lane and delay traffic; increased and improved lighting for safety; an innovative intersection at Northern Boulevard; and landscaping, picket fences, and wall textures that aesthetically enhance the neighboring areas of this intrusive yet essential highway. But the NYSDOT did not stop there. Now, instead of walking on the street between 65th and Broadway, subway riders leaving the station on the Broadway line can walk on a sidewalk. Best of all, many residents of this area now have noise walls that will reduce the sounds of traffic for years to come.

DOUGLAS A. CURREY, P.E.
Regional Director, New York State Department of Transportation
Long Island City, N.Y.

‘Inside the CUNY Union’

Re: “Inside the CUNY Union,” Editorial, February 8, 2005. I am a part-time faculty member at Queens College CUNY. The Professional Staff Congress union does not speak for me, certainly not with its leftist political activities, pronouncements, and endorsements.

The same “Taylor Law” that prohibits public employees from striking also gives the PSC and other public employee unions the right to deduct an “agency fee” from employees who are not members of the union

We CUNY faculty members thus have the choice of belonging to the PSC union, or having the “agency fee” equal to the union dues deducted from our paychecks. It is, to be sure, legalized extortion, a Communist Party tactic well in keeping with PSC’s Communist Party heritage.

KENNETH H. RYESKY
Adjunct assistant professor
Queens College
CUNY

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