Joel Aoto

September 8, 2015
10 Oclock class
Gregory A Petsko writes a scathing letter to the president of SUNY Albany,
because of the announcement about the elimination of five humanities departments
within the college. Petsko writes about the overall loss to society when SUNY Albany
closes those departments. Petskos main argument was that even though these
departments didnt bring in money and werent able to support themselves, that
they should be kept alive by the profitable departments, just in case there is a
situation where they are useful. Petsko uses biased writing, ethos, and logos to
sway the audience to his point.
Petsko uses biased writing to sway his audience to his point of view. He
intentionally defames the president of SUNY Albany by showing the presidents lack
of credentials. Petsko used bias to win over the audience, by making the president
seem incompetent, it makes Petsko look more credible. Petsko shows the
presidents qualifications by writing From your biography, you dont actually have a
PhD or other high degree, and have never really taught or done any research at a
university.(Paragraph 12, line 3) Petsko discredits the president by showing he has
no experience as a professor or any experience in a university. This makes the
audience doubt the presidents ability to make confident decisions about the
university. After establishing credibility, Petsko uses personal opinion in his
arguments. For example Petsko writes Its because administrators like you, and
spineless faculty, have stopped setting distribution requirements and started
allowing students to choose their own academic programs (paragraph3, line 11)
this is clearly Petskos own opinion on how students should be taught. Petsko is
saying that students should be forced to enroll in a wide variety of topics to become
well rounded students. However this point didnt seem relevant to the main topic
and came off as mainly a way to insult the president further. Especially since this
topic is different based on each persons philosophy.
Gregory A Petsko uses ethos by siting works that support his point and show
that arts are an important part of life. Petsko writes The Inquisitor says that the
vast majority of humanity cannot handle freedom. (Paragraph 4, line 14) he uses
Dostoyevskys Parable as a way to support his point about creating a mandatory
core curriculum and to show that liberal arts have ideas that can relate to our
current situation. Petsko also establishes his credentials by writing, I started out as
a classics major. Im now Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry (Paragraph 12,
line 5) This gives the author credibility because not only is he influenced by his
admiration for the arts but he is also educated in the sciences, and shows that he
has experience in both the arts and the sciences. Petsko uses his credibility as a
well-rounded scholar as a way to sway the audience to his point of view.
Petsko uses logos by showing situations where departments that are
considered dead are extremely useful to the world. He does this to show that even
though at the moment people might think that studying these subjects may not

seem useful, in certain situations they are extremely important. Petsko does this to
show that it makes sense to keep these subjects alive. Then came September 11,
2001. Suddenly we realized that we needed a lot more people who understood
something about that part of the world, especially its Muslim culture. (Paragraph 9,
line 24) Petsko writes this to show that even though Middle Eastern studies isnt the
hottest of topics, it was extremely important. And that if we get rid of those studies
then we would be left without a large amount of knowledge.
Petsko uses biased writing, ethos and logos to sway his audience into
agreeing with his point. Even though this is a letter to the President of SUNY Albany,
the target audience wasnt the president. Petsko wrote this for people who would
get angry about losing these subjects. If the president was the target audience then
this letter would have been far less persuasive considering the amount of jabs that
Petsko takes at the president.