My name is Dr. Matthew Short, and like you, I stand proud as a Sul Ross alumnus. When you became the 13th president of Sul Ross, I knew the university would be taken care of by one of its own for the first time in its history. Your welcome letter stated that your goal was to ensure students have the same career opportunities you had. Where did that go?

I’m concerned about the proposal to create a general Fine Arts degree. This decision will have a crippling effect on Sul Ross and the Alpine community, plus it will decrease the faculty to one in each discipline, releasing 10 faculty lines out of 13.

My wife and I had opportunities at Sul Ross that our peers at more prominent universities could only dream about. We would never have had those opportunities with a general fine arts degree. Like you, we wish for students to receive the same experience and education we had in our time at Sul Ross.

A general fine arts program does not provide a significant depth of experience and study in any one area. Faculty members are critical in training students to think, create, and problemsolve. Students will need these skills in any job they hold after graduating. An education that does nothing to provide these experiences is hardly an education at all. Simply put, Sul Ross graduates are getting robbed, and will be without the entry-level skills required for professional jobs and advanced studies.

College is too expensive and too time-consuming for you to have this whimsical disregard for the student’s future. Hiding away in the land of general fine arts make-believe will make the eventual crash much more devastating.

To end, I will remind you of the charge you left with Sam Houston State University graduates in 1999 when you delivered their commencement speech. “I urge you to think about what it was that helped you get here. What made a difference for you? How can you make a difference for someone else? How do you choose to make society better?”

Dr. Matthew Short

Alpine