First and foremost, I would like to thank you very much for your donation. I hope one day to follow in your footsteps. As we all know, quality sextants are expensive and outside the reach of many students, yet they remain a crucial component of our training. As a cadet, shipping out on the TSES this summer, I was very happy to hear that an alumnus had generously donated funds for, if the rumors are true, 100 sextants for SUNY Maritime’s summer sea term. We, the cadets, desperately need sextants; most of the sextants on previous cruises are shared by necessity (and they are well worn - the index errors are crazy). So when I heard about this gift, I was very happy.
It turns out, unfortunately, SUNY Maritime has chosen to store these new sextants on campus for the future, instead of making them available to the cadets who need them to complete their first and second class cruises. I would imagine this is not in keeping with the original intentions of such a generous donation. If I am incorrect in any of the above statements, I apologize for any insinuation of wrong doing - I was merely misinformed… which is easy to do on this campus.
Again, thank you very much.