Letters to the Editor

Letters to the EditorOpinions

ASUPS Club Financing

Dear Editor, In her article in the last issue of The Trail, Grace Farrell asserted that “he ASUPS budgeting process appears thorough and helpful, but the logistics of reimbursements … remain burdensome.” I write as a co-president of the Jewish Student Union and former ASUPS president to attest to this burden (and its disproportionate weight on students who are economically disadvantaged) and suggest a policy to help alleviate it. When I served as ASUPS president during the 2022–2023 academic year, my administration issued purchasing cards to ASUPS clubs with budgets over...
Letters to the EditorOpinions

“Israel, Palestine, Gaza: Histories of the Present” on Dec 4 in Tahoma Room

Dear Editors, We are writing in response to your editorial, "University of Puget Sound Campus Must Respond to War in Gaza," in your November 10th issue. We need to continue to address the Israel-Hamas war on campus with care and thoughtfulness as to the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis alike. To that end, we would like to announce that Dr. Liora Halperin, Professor of International Studies and History, and Distinguished Endowed Professor of Jewish Studies, at the University of Washington-Seattle, will be giving a talk entitled, "Israel, Palestine, Gaza: Histories...
Letters to the EditorOpinions

Ongoing University Response to Israel-Hamas War

Dear members of the Trail Editorial Board,   The divisions of Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, and Institutional Equity and Diversity acknowledge the call the editorial board of the Trail made to the campus community last week to engage in learning and conversation about the Israel and Hamas war, antisemitism, andIslamophobia.  We would like to share with the campus community some of the collaborations currently underway among our three divisions, as well as our continuing efforts to address the topics listed above. As plans are finalized, we will inform the community...
Letters to the EditorOpinions

African American Studies’ Public Scholarship Class Presents: Articles about Race, Class, and the Puget Sound Experience

An Introduction: At the beginning of the semester, our professor asked us to think about something we were discouraged by and were also eager to change. We mentioned various topics, but the area that we all continued to return to and focus on was one related to our own campus community. Despite being from varying backgrounds, we all were concerned about how race and class operated on our campus. We had been learning about the complexity and compoundedness of race and class in our African American Studies (AFAM) courses, but...
Letters to the EditorOpinions

Student of color scapegoated for laugh at town hall

Letter to the Editor: Dear readers, I read with consternation the recent email from VPs Lorna Hernandez Jarvis and Sarah Comstock in regards to the Nov. 16 Town Hall incident. Rather than a resolution to this painful situation, their message highlights the failure of our leadership and community to deal with and learn from this event.  The email indicates that following the incident “an individual promptly and voluntarily came forward to clarify that the sound that was made is their natural laugh.” Notwithstanding, the individual is now required to “participate...
Letters to the EditorOpinions

A note from the Office of the President

It is hard to believe that we are nearly at the end of the semester, and this message is appearing in the final issue of The Trail for this calendar year! I appreciate having this opportunity to share a few thoughts with the readers of The Trail, and I would like to offer a message that has been adapted from my December report to the faculty. As classes come to a close and the winter break approaches, let’s take a deep breath and acknowledge the emotional journey we have been...
Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

The following note was delivered anonymously to The Trail’s campus mailbox and received on Nov. 11, 2022. You and the student paper are about to be besieged with the results of an effort coordinated by a large and militant group of faculty who cannot abide by the recent decision of the Board of Trustees to accept only a portion of the recommendations put forward by those same faculty. This group is organizing its messaging to the student newspaper. As you begin to receive enquiries and guidance from this portion of...
Letters to the Editor

A Statement from the President’s Office:

University of Puget Sound is not immune to the financial and enrollment realities facing higher education nationally, and as campus leaders we have a responsibility to maintain the academic and financial health of the university. For this reason, I charged the AAAPR Committee with providing their recommendations for how best to balance the academic priorities and financial reality of the institution given the current $10 million structural budget deficit. I thoughtfully considered their recommendations in light of our strategic plan goals, shared their report with the campus community for additional...
Letters to the Editor

Background and Resolution from October Faculty Meeting:

At the October 2022 meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Board voted on the President’s recommendations to move the university towards financial equilibrium by the end of Fiscal Year 2026. General bullet points were shared with the university community. The plan was not. Faculty requested to see the full report and supporting documents that were provided by the President and ultimately approved by the Board. To date, the President has not shared those documents with the faculty. This is a departure from the transparency and collaborative process the president...
Letters to the Editor

Faculty clarification on information conveyed in the 10/28 issue of The Trail

From Monica DeHart, Nancy Bristow, Robin Jacobson, and Siddharth Ramakrishnan; all are previous members of the AAAPRC. In the hopes of clarifying the work and recommendations of the AAAPRC, we would note that our committee was charged with closing the university’s $10 million deficit by Fiscal Year 2025. Therefore, our recommendations to reduce 35 FTE faculty and consolidate programs were in response to that call, rather than an independent finding about what would be good for the health of our liberal arts institution. That proposal sought both to help bridge...
Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

On Friday, Oct. 7, through Monday, Oct. 12, ASUPS will open electronic polls for its fall 2022 election. Independent of preference for individual candidates, the relative importance is high for students at this university. Undergraduate students will vote to elect ten of their peers to the ASUPS Senate, a body responsible for allocating over $500,000 of annual student funds (levied via the student government fee) and representing the student voice on a range of issues brought forth by the ASUPS Cabinet and other groups in the University’s shared governance system....
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