Jersey Born, Jersey Brewed

I enjoyed reading this issue! I was blown away by the stories about the Bruce Springsteen Archives and the brewery in Bradley Beach. 

—Matthew Cioletti, sophomore

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Cleared for Takeoff

Here’s a bit more history on Slocum Hall (“Hidden in Plain Sight,” fall/winter 2023). In the spring of 1960, just before I graduated with an associate degree, I was passing through the hall on the way to class and encountered a naval officer who had set up a table. He was recruiting potential naval aviators. I signed up for testing at Naval Air Station Lakehurst. I passed and started Navy flight training two months later. This led to a Navy career of 31 years. I retired as a captain in 1991. Funny how these seemingly small encounters lead to lifelong pursuits. 

—Captain Darryl A. Stubbs ’60A, United States Navy (Retired)

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Music to Their Ears

Every archive needs a home, and the idea that Bruce’s archives will be kept close to his home, in a place with a theater and funding for programming, lectures, and all the artifacts, is fantastic (“Inside the New Springsteen Archives,” fall/winter 2023). I’m one proud alumna! 

—Trish Hurley Callahan ’86M, via LinkedIn

So proud of the “Boss” and his lifetime achievements. What’s even better is being a Monmouth College/University alumnus.

—Jerome L. Hutchinson ’78, via LinkedIn

We should never lose the treasure of great American singer/songwriters like Bruce, Dylan, John Prine—the list goes on and on. It’s part of our fabric, and it tells our great American story. This center should preserve and encourage that spirit.

—Bruce N. Haydu ’75, via LinkedIn

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Remembering a Monmouth Radio Pioneer

WMCX was not Monmouth’s only radio station, or at least did not emerge unprecedented in 1974 (“Transmitting Memories,” fall/winter 2023). Back in September 1962, the speech and drama department brought in my father, John M. Salter, as an assistant professor. He served as an advisor to Monmouth’s radio station, having worked several years as a radio DJ at WNYU, where he had a program titled “The Four Winds.” To Monmouth he brought records from his own classical music collection that he left with the tiny West Long Branch station, which I believe broadcast at five watts and was AM only. Among the courses he taught at Monmouth were Introduction to Broadcasting and Creative Broadcasting. As a teacher, he found that taking outrageous positions got his students into vigorous classroom discussion.

—Jeremy M. Salter ’74

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More WMCX Memories

Although I very much enjoyed those who wrote about their memories of WMCX to honor the 50th anniversary of the station in the Fall/Winter 2023 issue, I just wanted to clear up one small error concerning the broadcasting of live sporting events. In one of the letters, it was said there were no live sports broadcasts on WMCX until 1984. I attended Monmouth from 1976 to 1980, and there were indeed broadcasts of Monmouth men’s basketball games during these years, when we broadcast on 88.1 FM. We broadcast most home games from Boylan Gym but never broadcast road games. I was the play-by-play announcer for most of those years. We also did a pre-game show called “Kornegay’s Corner” with the men’s head basketball coach at the time, Ron Kornegay ’69, ’74M. If my memory serves me correctly, we might have even also broadcast the one New York Knicks exhibition game they played at Boylan every year, usually against the Nets. Of course, the Knicks’ training camp was held at Monmouth for many years in the 1970s and 1980s. I just wanted to clear that minor item up. I really enjoyed those that reminisced about WMCX.

—Dan Stern ’80

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Latte Legend

I visited from New Zealand … and one of my absolute highlights was the Parson Café and the iced chai (“Office Space,” fall/winter 2023). … What a special human Jenn is. I can see why all the students love her! Thank you for the best service I received on my visit.

—Robyn Ancell (Parent), via Instagram

Monmouth is so lucky to have Jenn. She knows how to make everyone feel special. 

—Anne Deepak (Faculty), via Instagram

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Seeing Red

I emphatically disagree with the whole premise of the article “From Red Scare to Green Scare” (fall/winter 2023). Peter Jacques has been researching climate change denial, and he appears to be accusing conservative thinkers on the subject of being politically motivated—a “countermovement,” as he says, that denies the science of climate change warming the planet, leading to “dangerous changes.” I object to his opinion being used to make people think that it is fact that using fossil fuels has caused the slight rise in warming the climate, since countless times—over many, many years—temperatures have risen and fallen, as in ice ages and then global warming and back again. And that was before we even used fossil fuels as we do today. There are many scientists who have studied the facts about climate and have not concluded, as Professor Jacques has, that the planet is doomed. I think the climate activists are the ones who are fearmongering, creating a problem where none exists. Some of the choice remedies to fix the climate are, in my opinion, going to do more harm than good. 

—Paul W. Berkowicz ’77

I must say, i was a little taken aback by the last issue, first and foremost by the article concerning global warming (“From Red Scare to Green Scare”). I graduated in 1971, and I was a bleeding liberal at the time and participated in the Vietnam war strike and the taking over of what was then called Wilson Hall. Then I graduated and went to work and over the years became conservative. This does not nor should not make me an outcast and be defined by a conservative movement. We’re a movement? Really? If you want to address global warming, you should start with India and China. 

I was also disappointed that there weren’t more stories about alumni who graduated before 1980. On a positive note, Morgan Alston’s smile (“Launchpad”) is one of the nicest I have ever seen. 

—Gerard Tirotta ’71

Editor’s Note: We invited Peter Jacques, whose research on climate change denial was detailed in the article, to respond: 

Of course, there have been conservative leaders who did not oppose climate policy or science (think John McCain, early Newt Gingrich, etc.). However, the Climate Change Countermovement (CCCM) has been organized to cast doubt on climate science and oppose climate policy since 1992. A social movement (e.g., the environmental movement) is simply a conscious, collective effort for change, identifiable by organizations and leaders. When opposition to the first movement is organized, it is a countermovement, similarly identifiable through countermovement organizations and leaders (e.g., the Heartland Institute and the Heritage Foundation).

Additionally, there is a robust consensus among scientists who do climate research stating that the Earth is warming (the temperature anomaly over the last couple years has been astonishing), that this warming is driven principally by human-related greenhouse gases, and that there are already dangerous impacts from this disruption. This consensus is measured in the scientific literature. The latest study (Lynas et al. 2021) concludes “with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.”

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