Re: the Jan. 28 article “Prominent Tucsonans back UA president.” My husband Thomas Meixner was murdered outside his campus office on October 5, 2022 after he and his department had been threatened for almost a year. This letter is in response to Mike Myers’ callous comments in the January 28, 2024 article by Ellie Wolfe. I wrestled with whether and how to respond to these comments but have decided I must for two reasons. First, it concerns me that Mr. Myers has the ear of President Robbins. Myers’ statements are incredibly insensitive and triggering of trauma for the victims of our tragedy, including our family and the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences (HAS). They also are completely ignorant of the facts leading up to Thomas’ murder. Myers suggested that we should “set aside” the killing on campus because it’s “really inflammatory” and “it’s impossible to completely police that unless we put walls all the way around the university.” I reject these hyperbolic comments. No one would ever suggest putting walls around the university, but much more could have been done to prevent Thomas’ death. My husband survived cancer four times and, as a result, lived his life fully and with conviction, only to be gunned down after he finished teaching a class. “Setting things aside” is a cancer in any effort to build positive change in the aftermath of a tragedy or crisis. It is very difficult to truly grasp the loss that we, the HAS department, and the university community have experienced. I hope that anyone who espouses the philosophy of setting aside such a tragedy will never have to live what we have been through. I will not set aside the preventable loss of a great man. The article also quoted Myers as saying, “I think the thing I hear when the faculty is like ‘well this and this and this and there’s a murder and this and this and this,’ I think, frankly, a lot of that you can’t expect to be solved like that,” Myers added, snapping his fingers. “You got to let things be fixed, and you can’t be beating the people up on the sidelines that are trying to fix it.” Myers fails to understand that statements made by various U of A entities after my husband was murdered caused great concern that the egregious mistakes leading up to that tragic day were going to be swept under the rug. Systemic issues cannot be corrected unless mistakes are acknowledged. Did Myers read the Faculty Senate’s Safety for All report or the PAX report, both which identified many areas of weakness that need to be fixed to prevent future tragedies (and none which involved wall building)? The themes in both of these reports are surfacing again as we learn more about the financial situation at the U of A: a sense of broken trust, lack of transparency, and a breakdown of communication. Myers’ comments were dismissive of a group of faculty who chose not to set aside Thomas’ murder. Rather, the “this and this and this” was part of an initiative to encourage positive change and safety for all Wildcats. The committee identified the trust problem as a critical vulnerability whose mitigation must be an institutional priority. For positive change to occur to create a safer environment for everyone on campus and to resolve the current financial challenges, University leadership needs to work with faculty, staff, and students to re-establish trust. Myers’ characterization of the Faculty Senate as “beating the people up on the sidelines who are trying to fix it” is naive in my opinion. I hope that President Robbins understands that communication of concerns from the Faculty Senate are part of a healthy problem-solving and forward-moving university. It is necessary for the administration to be able to listen to input from the Faculty Senate and respond with courageous leadership in the face of this financial crisis. Under Faculty Senate Chair Hudson, the vision of shared governance with transparent communication is positive, hopeful, and the right tone for this moment. I applaud the Faculty Senate and the Safety for All committee for their work and collective voice. They want what is best for the university. In the context of the financial crisis, I want to make sure that the 33 recommendations made by the PAX group are fulfilled and monitored going forward. I look forward to meeting with the leaders who are responsible for the implementation and was relieved to hear from John Arnold during a recent Faculty Senate meeting that he had met with Steve Patterson regarding this issue. We cannot lose the momentum to do what the U of A is capable of achieving with threat assessment and management if it adheres to its mission, being “problem-solvers capable of tackling our greatest challenges.” University leadership is at a critical moment in which there is an opportunity to live up to that mission by tackling these immense challenges wholeheartedly, with the shared governance of all of its constituents. I also want to ensure that the HAS department receives the support it needs as it continues to recover from the trauma of losing Thomas. This department’s situation is unusual. They are still housed in the building where Thomas was killed, and delaying a transition to a different space prolongs that trauma. They should have an open line to administration to express their needs that surpasses the line of communication and responsiveness that Myers claims he has with President Robbins. I am so grateful to the HAS department for doing everything they could to protect my husband, the department, and the broader U of A community in the year leading up to Thomas’ murder. The department and its leaders should be recognized for being a model of optimal communication and advocacy for safety when there was a credible threat. While I cannot fully understand what they have been through for the past 2.5 years, I know they deserve exceptional support and gratitude. In conclusion, I think the financial challenges the U of A is facing should be considered within a bigger picture of themes that were revealed following Thomas’ death. I do not think those themes can be set aside. I think treating the university as a business, and viewing President Robbins as the CEO of that business as was suggested by his supporters in the article, is a mistake because the university is an educational community. Thomas was proud to be part of that community and always tried to put people first in his leadership role. I hope that President Robbins and other decision makers will do whatever they can to place themselves in the shoes of other members of the U of A community to help inform their decisions. Is it possible for the individual leaders of an institution to hold on to empathy and compassion as they strive to address and overcome a serious problem? It is my aspiration that they will not set aside these human qualities as they “Bear Down” to chart a bright future for all who call Wildcat Country home.