The Cost of Cal State L.A.’s Ties to the Joffrey

Regarding “Joffrey Making Itself at Home at Cal State L.A.” (Aug. 23), the Salli Stevenson article that speaks of the “new partnership” between the dance troupe and the California State University system:

I am appalled at the expensive association with the Joffrey Ballet in which “the university is providing a handsome physical plant” for the dancers. This is still another in a long series of extravagant performing-arts expenditures by a system that simply cannot afford them.

Under Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds, these expenditures have run amok. Meanwhile, real-world problems, curable with cash, continue to fester.

Throughout the system, Reynolds builds theaters and music halls instead of engineering labs and programs. Seventeen campuses offer theater-arts degree programs; only three offer chemical engineering.

PETER BRETNALL, Venice