The Iowa State Daily has failed to accurately portray the condition of the graduate engineering programs in the article titled “Graduate engineering program falls 8 places in national rankings,” that appeared in the Daily on April 6.

On April 5, a photographer from the Daily came to Sweeney Hall requesting photographs for an article about the College of Engineering.

We would never have posed for these pictures had we known that our photographs were going to be associated with such a headline and figure captions. We did not speak to a reporter, nor were we told what the article was about.

Matt is a Ph.D. candidate, looking forward to graduation this year, and Jarod is a senior undergraduate, also looking forward to graduation.

Both of us are currently focused on projecting ourselves and our education in the most positive light possible as we search for jobs and begin the careers we’ve worked hard to prepare for. This report on the part of the Daily is unwelcome as well as irresponsible.

By 10:30 in the morning on April 6, Matt had already received e-mail from alumni who had seen this article on the Daily Web site. How many countless others have now seen his picture and not said anything to him?

Thanks to the Daily for removing the photograph and caption at our request.

Although the article accurately discussed the position of the College of Engineering and the difficulties that faculty and students may be facing, it falsely associated the chemical engineering department with the fall in the ranking.

The captions of both the figure on the front page and the one on page 18 wrongly correlated work in the chemical engineering department with the fall in ranking of the college.

In truth, the chemical engineering department at Iowa State is a marvelous place to work and is ranked in the top quartile of the chemical engineering departments nationwide.

It is very unfortunate that the Daily missed an opportunity to highlight successes within the college in an unfriendly environment of budget cuts and a narrowing job markets for engineers.

The Daily failed to note, for instance, that we have not lost faculty (despite their receiving offers elsewhere), or that we have recruited outstanding new faculty and hired award-winning faculty (seven in the last five years, and looking to add more this year) from other strong institutions who are national and internationally noted.

Matt Kipper

Graduate Student

Chemical Engineering

Jarod Carl

Senior

Chemical Engineering