DEPARTMENTS

LETTERS

Research Lacking

I just finished reading the Summer 2020 edition and am compelled to make observations on the article “Professor Partners with Police.” As a retired law enforcement professional, I am concerned that Professor Adams’s research is lacking.

Any academic exercise to determine causation should use the full scope of variables, not just the ones that fit the narrative. This style of alleged research leads to faulty outcomes. Professor Adams notes that she had to “challenge her own perceptions and stereotypes of police” when she began this effort. After reading the article, it certainly gives the appearance her challenge failed. The glaring omission of how citizens act and react in the presence of police is alarming.

Further, Professor Adams adds George Floyd for relevance to her article. She could have added the fact that George Floyd could have complied with officers that day and just gone to jail.

As a 1993 graduate of IUP with a degree in criminology and 25 years of state and federal law enforcement experience, I, and all of the law enforcement professionals I worked with in four states and more than 20 cities, treated every person with respect and never once used skin color to assess “worth within society.”

Professor Adams’s myopic view of how skin color equals results in life seems to be clouding her judgment and is not befitting a true academic pursuit.

I firmly suggest IUP take a second look at this effort and reassess this effort to be more inclusive of the entire picture.

A second look at this effort should also include a wider scope of police input. Kudos to Indiana Police Department for participating, but Professor Adams needs to be more inclusive of other departments and their procedures, policies, and practices. Otherwise, she needs to limit her findings to Indiana only.

With the heightened sense of racial injustice in this country, academia needs to demand objectivity and completeness.

Gary Stark ’93 Orange Beach, AL

Police Effort Inspires

After reading [“Professor Partners with Police”], I am so proud of IUP and the Borough of Indiana. Police Chief Justin Schawl and Professor Abbie Adams should be front-page news. Addressing racism and social injustice with education and research, done on this microlevel, is what every community in the country could be doing to unite and connect.

As someone who moved to Indiana and attended Indiana High School and IUP, part of what makes the region different from other parts of Appalachia is the diversity of the university community and welcoming nature of local families. It’s inspiring to see the commitment by the police, borough, and university to hold strong with these values.

Rachel Kennedy Peters ’00 Woodbridge, VA

Start Date Incorrect

While reading the summer issue of IUP Magazine, I noticed that on page 32 [Mentors: “Crème de la Crème”] it states that IUP’s study abroad program to Nancy, France, was established in 1985.

I think this is inaccurate, since I traveled to Nancy as part of IUP’s study abroad program in 1982. It was through the leadership of Dr. Ludo op de Beeck (now deceased) at the time, if I’m not mistaken.

I traveled to Nancy, France, in January of 1982 and joined a group of IUP students who were already there for the 1981-82 academic year, so that program certainly precedes my participation in it. I think it was running for many more years before IUP associate professor [Charles] McCreary’s involvement and was established quite a while before your magazine’s stated beginning of 1985.

Susan Ramage Cooper ’82 Bell, FL

Not the First

I was happy to receive my copy of the magazine. . . . I was surprised to see the information on the IUP-Nancy, France, program, however.

The article stated that the program had started in 1985, but that is not correct. I was in the group that was there from fall 1981 to summer 1982. We were not the first group to be there. My freshman year, in fall 1979, a student in my dorm had just come back from her junior year there, so it was already in place at least in 1978-79.

Shawn Morrison ’84 Associate Dean, School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs, College of Charleston Charleston, SC

Editor’s Note: A number of IUP sources have shed light on the start of the IUP study abroad program in Nancy. The earliest mention of a University of Nancy exchange program in the Undergraduate Catalog is in 1978. Jessica Geletka Mulvihill ’02, D’16, director of Education Abroad, found that IUP entered into an official exchange agreement with the university in 1981.

In his research, Department of Foreign Languages chair Charles McCreary found that the first formal exchanges date back to 1976. He wrote, “Dr. Victor Drescher laid the groundwork for the collaboration between IUP and the Université de Nancy 2 (now Université de Lorraine) in 1977. The summer program started a couple of years later.”

Performances Missing

I was doing a web search last night for one of the bands listed below and stumbled upon “A List of Legends” [IUP Magazine, Summer 2018]. I attended IUP from 1972 through 1976 and noticed that a few performances were missing from the list:

• The Paul Winter Consort, fall 1972,

Student Union

• The Strawbs, spring 1974, Memorial Field

House: Warm-up act for Dave Mason.

The Strawbs were promoting their new album Hero and Heroine. I worked that concert as a volunteer stagehand for IUP’s

Student Union board. After the show, about 10 of us had to carry a grand piano up the hill back to Cogswell at 1:00 in the morning.

• Virgil Fox, fall 1975, Fisher Auditorium:

One of the 20th century’s premier classical organists.

• Weather Report, April 1976, Fisher

Auditorium: Jazz geniuses featuring Joe

Zawinul (keyboards), Wayne Shorter (saxophone), Jaco Pastorius (bass), and

Peter Erskine (drums). Weather Report was promoting its new album Black

Market. I sat in the front row, right in front of Joe’s keyboard rig—outstanding.

• Hall and Oates, May 1976, Memorial Field

House: I remember this well, because I was unable to attend. I had to go home for the weekend to be a groomsman in my cousin Ed’s wedding.

• Return to Forever, spring 1977, Memorial

Field House: Another band of jazz geniuses, with Chick Corea (keyboards),

Al Di Meola (guitar), Stanley Clarke (bass), and Lenny White (drums).

Dave Bertovic ’76 Calabasas, CA

Editor’s Note: Duggan Collier also wrote, adding to the list of performers Spyro Gyra, who he said played Fisher Auditorium in the spring of 1982, when he was a freshman living in Gordon Hall. He said he transferred from IUP in 1984.

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