Dear Editor,
It is offensive to publicly post the names of a targeted group of people calling them “bloated” and “useless” and inferring they are expendable and it is wrong to champion the person who compiled and posted that list.
I can’t explain why Leigh Corrette targeted me along with 50 other KSC staff members in her anger filled letter to The Equinox editor printed on April 5, 2012.
I have never met Ms. Corrette who is an adjunct lecturer at KSC. In my professional role as an information technologist I can assure Ms. Corrette that I do not “write reports about reports about reports” as she asserted in her letter.
I am sorry for any misfortune that Ms. Corrette is experiencing and the obvious pain it is causing her. I don’t know how Ms. Corrette measures “hurt” or if adjunct faculty were hurt “most” as her letter’s headline noted but I do know the state funding cuts resulted in significant and painful cuts to staff benefits and positions at KSC.
In fact, two of our colleagues died not too long after their positions at KSC were eliminated. I think their families and friends might feel that they were hurt “most” of all.
I get IT! Ms. Corrette is frustrated and angry about reductions in teaching loads for adjuncts.
I hope she is able to find a more productive and positive way to address her grievances than by directing angry words and belittling comments toward a group of people whom she has identified as expendable.
Ironically, many of the people targeted by Ms. Corrette also teach courses at KSC. The salary list that accompanied the letter to the editor reflected, for some, the total pay of both their full-time professional positions and their second jobs as KSC adjuncts.
I encourage Ms. Corrette to use a little more civility, kindness and respect to help improve the learning and working community we know as Keene State College. More than anything, I wish her Peace!
I am grateful to the many colleagues who have contacted me since reading Ms. Corrette’s letter. They have shared words of appreciation and support that let me know my work is still valued by most people in our community.
Their kind and humorous words are a salve for the angry words Ms. Corrette directed toward me.
In closing I would like to quote Richard Greenberg, “There is a vanity to candor that isn’t really worth it. Be kind.” Thank you.
Diane LeBlanc, Employed in I.T. (Information Technology) for 29 years – the last 8 at Keene State