The articles on “Blow-off” courses at the university is just that mode of journalism which rightly enough causes the media to be held as conniving fools by the larger American public.

Although the heat is turned down as professors are allowed a meaningful statement and are treated with some respect, should the pieces have been published in that form in the first place?

Twenty students interviewed: hearsay and innuendo; yellow journalism meant to arouse controversy for what goal? I wonder if a “defamation of character” litigation would not be in order for all those mentioned.

Most specifically I write to object the inclusion of Art 282 in the list, and defend myself and my colleagues in the School of Art who have taught this course during the past decade.

Anyone offering this Introduction to Art—knowing that most students in this usually large auditorium class are taking the only visual art in their college careers—treats both the material and the students themselves with high seriousness (all types of humor still permitted).

I have two required text books in my sections in a clear effort, verbalized for the students, to help produce the sense of the long-existent, deeply-entrenched force that visual art has been in human culture.

Students have never complained; hopefully more than mere apathy, their reaction may be index to an appreciative grasp of the significance of such teaching intention.

Joshua Kind

Professor

Art History