In response to "Ocean Storm: Pitt's Unfortunate Parting with Semester at Sea" (June 10 editorial):

Those who make their living using words -- editors, as well as lawyers -- are skilled at framing an argument so that it is hard to lose. Your editorial criticizing Pitt's decision to end its long relationship with the Semester at Sea program because of "concerns about liability," as you phrased it, provides a clear example of such skill at play.

		Mark A. Nordenberg is chancellor and James V. Maher is provost of the University of Pittsburgh.

"Liability" is a sterile, inanimate and unappealing term. And the editorial's explicit message is that a decision to abandon a program of demonstrated worth because of "concerns about liability" must have been made by persons who are unnaturally risk averse.

Push just a little on the language, though, and the balance changes dramatically. Concern about liability in this setting, after all, is just a shorthand label for concern about risks to the lives and well-being of hundreds of eager but inexperienced young people sailing through sometimes rough seas to strange and distant places. Past interactions with the parents of students who have lost their lives -- while participating in Semester at Sea, as well as in other settings -- have left each of us with a heightened, but healthy, sense of the devastation that can result, whether there was liability or not.

The world cannot be made risk-free, of course, but doing what we can to deal effectively with risks to student safety has been, and will remain, a Pitt priority. That priority is reflected in numerous ways -- including our sizable annual investments in campus security, large capital outlays for residence hall fire suppression systems, consistent record of opposition to wrong- way bus lanes and our reluctant decision to separate from the Semester at Sea program.

No one can deny the value of the program as we once knew it, and neither of us does. In fact, each of us has served on its boards, supported it from our professional positions and made personal financial contributions to it. However, in many relevant respects, this is not the program that we once served and supported. There is a different ship, a different maritime management team, a different board and a different attitude within the leadership of the Institute for Shipboard Education.

Of particular concern to us was a persistent unwillingness to share relevant safety-related information, in the aftermath of a serious incident at sea, either with us or with program participants. Withholding such information prevents reasoned judgments by those who have a stake in knowing. It also is a telling sign of a relationship that has no future.

Though we never did get the information that would have permitted us to strike a tone as reassuring as your editorial did, we do genuinely hope that all future Semester at Sea voyages are completely safe and incident-free. We also hope that the program will find a good new academic home. And for the good of all involved, we hope that, in forging that new relationship, the leaders of the Institute will look to their own institutional past and reshape the more recent information sharing practices that any responsible university partner would find problematic.

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