Column Challenged on Faculty Description

In his June 23 column, Sam Hall Kaplan made some rather strange and contradictory remarks about the UCLA architectural department. First the good news: how well the students in the department are handling the concept of integrating the artist and city housing; and by inference, the proud display of graduate student master-thesis projects on the same page.

Then comes the bad news: While passing along a rumor about a new dean for UCLA’s School of Architecture, he passes along outright gossip, without explanation, “. . . of UCLA’s embattled architectural and planning school.” Finally, the venom really strikes, as the faculty is described as “. . . ethereal polemicists protected by tenure and dabbling in design at UCLA.”

So what’s the sense of all of this, Mr. Kaplan? We can readily see the virtues of the students, but your attack on the faculty needs the kind of documentation we expect from The Times.

MEL MENKIN

Arleta