Access at JFK School

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I was deeply offended by the charges made against me by Steven Rosenthal in his letter to the Editors of The Crimson which appeared in the October 24th issue of The Crimson. He asserts that I said "Dean Allison makes it a policy of not seeing students." That assertion is false. While I don't vividly recall the conversation with this particular student, I certainly never made that statement. I'm sure that's not our policy.

There are in the Kennedy School of Government 330 students; the School's Institute of Politics actively engages over 1000 undergraduates annually; the School of Government has an alumni body of over 3000; more than 10,000 individuals are part of an active "network" of the School. Each day our office receives well over 50 phone calls for Dean Allison and dozens of pieces of mail.

Suppose Dean Allison were to accept all 30 calls and talk to each person for five minutes. 250 minutes translates into nearly four hours of the working day, and that apart from another 10 hours of daily meetings, hours spent teaching, and perhaps even time to read the mail and think. The question of allocating 14 hours of a working day among these various claims is not easy.

Add to this that the student in question came in at the beginning of the term, while we were trying to complete a new building, as the School was preparing for last weekend's opening--which raised our daily phone calls from 50 to over 200--and the problem appears clearer.

Given this student was not able to demonstrate what was presently urgent about his request, he was put off for the time being.

The implication of Mr. Rosenthal's charge is even more disturbing. Why would he write something to the Crimson that is so blatantly false? I suppose he felt that since he could not see Dean Allison just when he wanted to, it was OK to complain and to make his complaint vivid by crafting an exaggeration and attributing it to me. Elise Renoni   Secretary to the Dean