To the Hofstra community:
We would like to respectfully respond to two Letters to the Editor that were received in response to last week’s article titled “Tenured Zarb professors driven to resign.”
In the letter from Dean Herman Berliner, he mentions two factual errors in the piece. He points out that the article labeled Dr. Ralph Polimeni as head of the DPC and also said that Dr. Mohamed Gomaa was given tenure. These inaccurate statements were brought to the attention of The Chronicle and changed in the online version of the piece prior to receiving Berliner’s letter.
In the letter by the four faculty members, they stated that “… what wasn’t mentioned in the article, is that the Committee unanimously supported Dr. Gomaa for reappointment.” However, we did originally report that, “After appearing at a DPC meeting regarding these charges, the accusations were dropped. Berliner and the DPC unanimously recommended his reappointment.”
The four faculty members asserted that the information in our article was “incomplete.” The Chronicle would like to make clear that Dr. Burke was reached out to for comment and given the opportunity to share her side or feelings on the matters presented in the article. She chose not to comment and referred all questions to the dean.
The Chronicle would also like to make clear that our reporter did their best effort to represent all major parties in the article and did not in any way attempt to mislead the Hofstra community. We apologize for the errors in titles and hope that by changing these errors online in a timely fashion we have prevented any further readers from being exposed to these discretions.
The Chronicle holds every piece in our publication to the highest of standards and would not publish an article that we did not believe met them.
We ultimately stand by the publication of the article. Our reporter was acting with the information provided to them by all parties reached, which we still feel was necessary to share with the Hofstra community.
The Hofstra Chronicle Editorial Board