What the geology students are doing is practicing topographic mapping using a plane table (“From the Archives,” Spring 2016). They’re probably taking a course in field geology, or maybe it’s just an exercise in a general geology course. Judging from their attire, it must be a very hot May afternoon. Thanks for another fine issue. David Squires (CAS’63)

These students are making a topographic map, a geology field exercise of surveying, with a plane table (on the tripods) and alidade (the instrument shown on the table in front of the shirtless guy). This exercise was usually done in groups of three, with one student holding a tall measuring rod at a distance (not shown in the photo), another looking through the alidade at the rod, taking measurements, and a third doing the calculations. The results are plotted on the paper on the plane table, resulting in a topographic map, which is a map that shows elevations of the land. The exercise was normally done in field camp; at the time, it was course GL450, a summer course for majors and grad students. It was offered in the Department of Geology. I am happy to say I received my master’s degree from the geology department in 1970. I remember doing this exercise as part of field camp in 1968. Those were wonderful days and I remember them fondly. After graduating, I had a great career teaching geology and physics at St. John’s University in New York, and am now retired. Edith Chasen-Cerreta (SED’68, GRS’70)

The geology students in your photo are doing a plane table and alidade experiment to site elevations of objects on the mall. This is a basic geologic exercise that all students learn, typically in a field course. My wife, a 1979 BU geology graduate, and I learned these skills from C. W. Wolfe, the late, great BU professor of geology. I went to Salem State University, where Wolfe taught after he retired from BU. Our field camp was also open to BU students, which is where I met my wife. Rich Cerbone

I was reading through the Spring 2016 edition and was noting that it was a particularly interesting issue. But what really caught my attention was “From the Archives: A slice of eighties life on the BU Beach” where you request information about the image. I immediately recognized my good friend Kosta Exarhoulakos, who is on the far right and is characterized as the one “in the dark shirt giving the photographer a quizzical look.” Kosta was a geology major, class of ’82. We met at BU in Warren Towers and became good friends. We studied together, worked out in martial arts, did scuba diving, and took a great fencing class at BU together (where the instructor was a former Olympic competitor). In fact, Kosta’s traditional Greek family became good friends with my parents and we all celebrated our graduation in the driveway at his home in Brookline Village. My mom had one sip of ouzo and had to sit down. It was a fun time that my family remembers to this day. Thank you so much for posting this image from the archives; it rekindled great memories of BU and my friendship with Kosta and his family. Stephen B. Corn (CAS’82, MED’86)

I noted with interest your article on pay equity “Calculating Gender Pay Equity,” Spring 2016, which once again lumped the sexes into opposing camps versus looking at the value of each individual’s work. Worse still was the magazine’s choice of graphics, which juxtaposed a small female coin (Susan B. Anthony) against that of the larger male (John F. Kennedy). I believe this was meant to reinforce the idea of diminished wages for women, but in actuality shows the man at half value of his female counterpart in the picture. A more thoughtful choice in the graphic would have been prudent for the article’s intended impact—and more thoughtful consideration of us all as individuals versus dispatched into privileged or underprivileged groups might have made for a differing conclusion. John F. Prickett (CAS’87, GRS’88)

In his letter printed in your Spring 2016 issue, Jason Sumner (CAS’73, GRS’76) referred to the late BU Professor of Political Science Howard Zinn as a “firebrand.” Sumner said he was “scared” of the demonstrations that rocked the campus in the late ’60s and early ’70s at the height of the Vietnam War. As a BU student who proudly shared a Boston jail cell with Zinn after the mass arrests of students and others in the spring of 1972, I take offense at calling Zinn a “firebrand.” My Webster’s dictionary defines that as “one that creates unrest or strife,” an “agitator.” Who was it that created unrest and strife? It was President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the rest of that team, the escalators of that war, who created such a condition. And it was brave men such as Howard Zinn who tried to stop it by ending the war. I was never “scared” of the demonstrations in which I participated, except when the Boston police were called in by BU President John Silber and started swinging their batons at us. I was proud to be a part of an important movement and to be taught moral lessons by my professor. Randall Beach (CAS’72)

In the Fall 2015 issue, there is a girl sitting in the photograph of US Senator George McGovern speaking at BU on April 26, 1970 (“From the Archives”). That girl looks very much the way I looked back then, although I cannot say with certainty that it was me. It could have been, though. As a 19-year-old undergraduate at CLA (now CAS), I strongly opposed the Vietnam War, which had already killed several of my friends and high school colleagues. In October 1969, I was among the more than 100,000 participants of the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam who marched to and gathered in Boston Common where George McGovern, who was also vigorously against the war, was a featured speaker. It makes sense that I would have attended a campus lecture by him just a few months later. If it is me in the photo, and I think it might be, I am the girl sitting in Section E of the bleachers, adjacent to the rope that divides the left part of that section, with long dark hair and a long light-colored top with belt. I don’t remember being there, but that’s how I looked back then and I remember that outfit. Reena Deutsch (CAS’71)

We welcome your letters, which will be edited for clarity and length for this publication. We also welcome your story ideas. Please email the editor at thurston@bu.edu or write to Editor, arts&sciences, Boston University, 985 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 205, Boston, MA 02215. Please include your name, address, and BU school(s) and class year(s).