To the editor:

The response of Kevin Carroll, president of the Kansas University Alumni Association, to the recent article and editorial about the laudable effort of the provost and others to revive the idea of a faculty club, is both unfortunate and predictable. His observation that “on a long list of impact opportunities” (on which he nowhere lists enhancing faculty morale and collegiality and providing an attractive venue for recruitment of prospective faculty) “food service is not a key priority” raises basic questions about KUAA’s goals.

Many of us recall that the Learned Club was once far more than a provider of “food service.” Many of us also remember – with considerable bitterness – that the initial campaign to construct a “faculty/alumni center” urged faculty to contribute to that aim. On the rare occasions that I enter the “Adams Alumni Center,” I cannot resist stoking those feelings of betrayal by glancing at the plaque listing contributors – a list on which the names of my wife and myself are present.

Happily, the Adams Center’s provision of facilities for retired faculty continues as was originally intended.

But one has to ask why the KUAA exists if not for the purpose of supporting those activities that the university administration deems to be important.

A revived faculty club, located in a building designed for that purpose is, from my perspective, precisely what the KUAA should endorse rather than focus on hosting Saturday soirees for legislators and alumni. Nearly all of those universities with which we compare ourselves have faculty clubs. Why not KU?

Theodore A. Wilson,

Lawrence