 In the May 1985 issue of the same magazine, President Austin himself wrote a letter to the editor in which he defended the school against Burka's suggestion that it was unhealthy, calling Burka's assessment "far from accurate".Austin further argued that ETSU's academic quality "has never enjoyed more robust health" and that the school was working toward reversing falling enrollment numbers by its efforts to "increase standards for student admission and retention dramatically, revitalize its academic offerings, and attract additional prominent scholars to its faculty".A more serious crisis occurred in spring 1986, when Select Committee on Higher Education chairman Larry Temple proposed the closure of some state universities, including ETSU.