To the Editor:

I must agree with Lisa Schoonmaker (“Div School board scapegoated Franklin,” 1/30) when she suggests that there were people other than the Dean on the bridge of the Berkeley ship when it “hit[s] the rock.” This proverbial rock, we have been led to believe, was the alleged misuse of Berkeley funds by Dean Franklin, particularly the matter of the improper payment of Harvard Medical School fees.

I was not surprised to read in the most recent Yale Daily News article (“Trustee approved improper payment,” 1/28) that the Berkeley board chairman and vice chairman had both approved of this expenditure, thus absolving Dean Franklin of this “crime.” What did surprise and sadden me, however, was the tardiness with which they came out with this particular admission, especially in view of the damaging and hurtful press Dean Franklin has been receiving over the issue for more than a month.

Garmon Ashby

January 30, 2002

The writer is a second-year student in the Master’s of Music program at the Yale School of Music.