Anti-City Attitudes
My family's business has been located in Baltimore City for over 75 years. For the past 20 years, I have been responsible for the hiring of new employees.
Finding good employees has always been a problem, but it was something I thought was just part of running a business.
Recently, I purchased a company in Timonium. Most of the day-to-day operations of this business are being transferred to my city location.
Therefore, I offered more than 25 employees of the Timonium location the opportunity to relocate.
I was truly amazed to find out how many of these employees would not accept employment with my company because the job was located in the city.
In no uncertain terms, these people would not work in Baltimore City.
It wasn't the specific location of my business (as they did not even know the neighborhood in which it is located), just that it was the city.
The negative reaction of people toward the city of Baltimore as a place of employment will cause the city to continue to lose business to the surrounding counties.
Elliot Zulver
Baltimore
The writer is vice president of Walbrook Mill & Lumber Co.
Light Pollution
It was very disturbing to read about plans for illuminating the World Trade Center building by installing high-powered xenon spotlights that will be visible "in all directions . . . for seven to 10 miles" (The Sun, Oct. 21). There are at least three reasons for my concern:
First, light pollution is a little-publicized but very real environmental disaster that is rapidly destroying our ability to see the night sky.
This problem affects all major metropolitan areas. In Baltimore only the brightest stars are visible on most nights, even 10 or 15 miles from the Inner Harbor. The glare from this lighting project will further diminish any chance we may have of enjoying the stars on a dark night.
Second, lighting the tops of tall buildings does nothing to improve security for visitors and residents. Crime occurs on the streets, which is where the lighting is needed.
Economical low-intensity systems that illuminate streets and other public areas without spreading light in all directions have been installed in several major cities. Perhaps consideration should be given to investigating them here.
Third, Baltimore may have more things to do with the $341,000 in public funds that the "light show" is projected to cost. Drugs, poverty, random killings and a dysfunctional school system are the news with which this paper is filled practically every day.
Although conceived as a cosmetic improvement, illumination of the World Trade Center would be a monument to governmental misdirection, corporate excess and disregard for the environment.
I strongly urge the Maryland Board of Public Works, the Maryland Port Administration and the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company to reconsider their plans before it is too late.
Hillel S. Panitch
Hunt Valley
Budget Buster
Congratulations to Rep. Bill Archer, R-Tex., incoming chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives, for having made very clear the essence of Republican philosophy.
Mr. Archer proposes a $190 billion tax cut, which he hopes to offset by cuts in domestic spending.
Such a program, as in Reagan years, would greatly increase the national debt, damage the middle class and punish the poor.
The 5 percent of the population which owns over 95 percent of the wealth would be greatly rewarded and become even richer.
The real joke is that most of the people who voted Republican voted against their own best interest and the interest of the country.
A nation in which the already-wealthy continue to get richer, and the poor continue to get poorer while the middle class declines, will not last long as a true democracy.
George B. Laurent
Baltimore
Advice to Winners
Even before the Democratic blood-letting slowed, political analysts were speculating that if the Republicans gained control of Congress one of their top priorities would be renewed Whitewater investigation.
As a Republican, I have two questions and offer some unsolicited advice to my newly-elected representatives.
First, what difference does it really make as to what President Clinton did years ago?
Second, who besides publicity-seeking committee members cares?
And my advice to the incoming Republicans is: Don't waste energy, time and my money beating a nearly dead donkey to death.
Frank A. Sume
Essex
Got It Right
While I was quick to score KAL for his cartoon on the "Guv," I need to be just as quick to give kudos when he really hits a home run.
KAL's Nov. 10 cartoon, "For every 100 eligible voters in Maryland," hits a homer clean out of the park. It is poignant, timely and, in a word, sad.
H. Randall Miller, Jr.
Baltimore
Measuring Excellence
We at the School of Social Work, University of Maryland at Baltimore, appreciate The Sun's thorough coverage of and editorial attention to the inauguration of Dr. David J. Ramsay as the new university president.
His challenge to the professional schools that make up this campus to be among the top three public institutions in the country within five years is exciting to us and matches our own goals of excellence.
Many groups attempt to evaluate and rank professional schools using diverse criteria, and the U.S. News & World Report ratings cited by The Sun are among the best known and most visible to the general public.
That publication uses different methods to rate schools in different disciplines, however, and its rankings may be more solidly grounded for some professional programs than for others.
For example, its basis for rating schools of social work is to poll social work deans and senior faculty concerning their own rankings of social work programs.
This method, which equates rank with reputation, makes it difficult for newer schools to compete with those whose names are better known. At a minimum, reputation must lag several years behind reality.
The Sun reported correctly that the UMAB School of Social Work was not ranked among the top schools using that method. It should be noted that only 10 schools were ranked. There are 118 accredited master's degree social work programs in the country.
Other approaches to ranking schools of social work do place our UMAB school within the top echelon.
For example, in studies of faculty productivity in publications, the UMAB School of Social Work consistently does well. It tied with Columbia University for second place nationally in number of faculty who met a high standard for publishing peer-reviewed articles in social work professional journals, as reported in the July, 1994 issue of Social Work.
The same study reports that the UMAB School of Social Work tied for eighth place in having produced highly productive social work scholars in its Ph.D. program. Another study published in Journal of Social Work Education in summer 1992 identifies doctoral graduates of the UMAB School of Social Work as ranking fourth nationally in professional publications.
Our master of social work program is very successful, for example, in preparing graduates to pass the examination for social work licensure. Ninety percent of our graduates pass on their first attempt, the highest pass rate of any school in the region.
When schools of social work are ranked based on what they accomplish and produce, the UMAB School of Social Work excels.
Jesse J. Harris
Baltimore
The writer is dean of the UMAB School of Social Work.