Friday October 26, 2001

Wildcat editorial an injustice

The Wildcat opinion piece, "AIC closing was correct choice by Likins, university officials," authored by the Wildcat Opinions Board, was rhetorically indefensible. It characterized student and faculty efforts to overturn Pres. Likins' decision as a lot of "pathetic pouting" and "sniveling," without producing a shred of evidence or a decent argument that it is either.

I am a member of AIC's Founding Faculty, so I've been here for the long run. I am not one of the faculty who is actively working to save AIC. In fact, I believe that the President's decision is the correct decision.

Over my years at AIC, I have become convinced that it is impossible to provide a high-quality, small college, liberal arts education to students on the cheap; the state of Arizona has not ever and will not in the foreseeable future financially support AIC to the degree needed to enable us to meet our promises to our students; and, non-tenure colleges are not a good idea because they cannot properly protect academic freedom and guarantee due process for either faculty or students.

But to call my colleagues and my students "pathetic" and "sniveling" is a gross injustice. The students at AIC are some of the finest I've ever taught. Their loyalty to their college, and their willingness to be active in defense of it mark them as "do-ers" as well as thinkers, and they should receive full credit for being willing to stand up to authority in defense of what they believe. I've seen them argue and I've seen them organize and campaign. I have not seen a single AIC student "snivel" about anything.

Nor do I think it at all fair to pin those adjectives on the AIC faculty who have chosen to contest Likins' decision. AIC's faculty have worked under incredible adverse conditions. We have one of the highest teaching loads on campus, in addition to a daunting array of other responsibilities: individually mentoring AIC students; chairing the committees of students doing capstone projects in their final year; doing independent studies with students to make up for a lack of upper-division courses, prepping for new courses virtually every semester; working with community members to establish service-learning contacts linked to our courses; sponsoring internships; sitting on at least two internal committees each; evaluating our colleagues; and, reading literally hundreds of applications from prospective faculty members, all while pursuing our own research agendas in our "spare" time.

Faculty who labor, year in and year out, under these kinds of conditions are neither pouters nor snivelers. As a faculty we have had a tremendous dedication to the ideals that AIC espouses, and to our students. Now that the end of AIC is at hand, it is no surprise that many AIC faculty will throw themselves into preserving what we have worked so hard to build. As I have said, I do not number myself among these fighters, but my colleagues deserve the respect they've earned after years of hard work and self-sacrifice for an ideal in which we really believe.

I hope that the Wildcat will apologize for gratuitously insulting the intelligence and the efforts of AIC students and faculty. Insults and biased language are not a mark of quality in journalism.

Kali Tal

Arizona International College

Letter should be removed from Web site

I am appalled at the lack of common sense and respect for the standards and regulations of this community apparent in your decision to post Adam Susser's letter "A six-step program to 'understanding'" in today's [Thursday's] online version of the Daily Wildcat.

This letter does nothing other than to encourage physical assaults against UA students and staff. It is not veiled. It is not subtle. It does threaten violence and it is illegal. By posting it, you are endangering the safety of members of this community.

You need to remove this statement immediately from your Web page. There is no free speech protection for threats under either federal or state law or under UA policy. By posting this on a UA-sponsored newspaper, you cause both yourselves and the university to become responsible for any act of violence or intimidation that happens as a result of Susser's threats.

I intend to pursue this matter vigorously with the UA administration and will request that appropriate sanctions be applied against those members of the Wildcat editorial staff who are responsible for the dissemination of this threat.

Jay Taylor

co-chair, UA section of Amnesty International

Susser letter threatens freedom of speech

Adam Susser's punch-a-peacenik "letter" in Thursday's Wildcat online has been circulating around the country for weeks, one sign of the difficulty of articulating rational arguments for why we should be bombing Afghanistan. On some campuses such calls to violence have led to the opening of police files.

The letter itself reflects two issues which have been highlighted by those who are opposed to the current bombing campaign. The first is the assumption that a considered response should be violence, rather than an appeal to a court of law. Particularly when sober, or with time to deliberate, finding the nearest officer of the law would to many seem to be a better solution than a retaliatory attack.

Second, Adam Susser assumes that turning Afghanistan "into a parking lot" will "eliminate any possible terrorist threats." While it is clear that the vast majority of the Afghan population has nothing to do with terrorism, the role of the Taliban is less clear, despite their horrific domestic practices.

It is clear that al-Qaida and other terrorist groups live in, train in and receive funding from nations around the globe.

A cynical campaign that directly puts millions of lives at risk, creates new martyrs and adds to the hatred generated by the "collateral damage" of U.S. foreign policy is more likely to produce new terrorist threats than eliminate existing ones. Would the war advocate punching the peace protester really decide that the moment to stop punching be that when the protester punched back?

A call to repress freedom of speech through violence or through analogies threatening violence seems to be a more fundamental threat than is terrorism itself to the values for which are troops are risking their lives. How American is it to "punch out" free speech?

Dereka Rushbrook

geography graduate student

Joyce column inane

I saw yet another stellar column by Sean Joyce on Wednesday. He stated that Richard Jefferson was Michael Jordan's "whipping boy"...because of what he saw in the box score. One of the great writers in the Daily Wildcat's fantastic sports department, Sean said that Jefferson was, "hopefully," taught a lesson by Jordan. I'm left wondering if he is trying to evaluate a game solely on the box score and not actually watching the game.

Anyone who actually did watch this game would have seen Jordan score the majority of his points when Jefferson was on the bench. There was a reason the Nets started Jefferson; they, as most avid basketball fans, know that Jefferson can play great defense. Had Richard not gotten in foul trouble, Jordan's line would not have been so good.

I suppose that means Sean Joyce would have concluded then that Jefferson did play well...I'm glad Joyce can interpret box scores so well to come up with such insightful comments! It takes a true talent to be able to write about a game he didn't even watch. I'd love to see a movie review that reads, "Well, "The Musketeer" was a great flick!! Oh...well, I don't really know anything about it, see, I didn't see it...but it was #1 at the box office, so it must be great!"

Sean: How about the next time you want to review a game, you actually watch it. It's good to keep words like "hopefully" out of your columns...you probably don't want everyone to know how ignorant you are about what you write on.

Michael T Brooks

computer science senior

Wildcat editorial out of line

The Editorial published on October 24, 2001 is out of line. Whoever wrote the article concerning the shutdown of AIC is missing the point. It was very unprofessional of your staff to call students' attempts to keep AIC open "pathetic pouting." It is obvious your staff does not understand why we are fighting.

If we focused all our efforts on colleges within our university that only provided financial security, we would be just as stupid as the large percentage of students who only go to school to make big bucks in the future. It is obvious to me that some of those students wrote this editorial. Sure the purpose of higher education is a controversial issue, but I go to school to learn what would have been a strain to learn on my own. AIC offers liberal art degrees for those students who are not here to make easy money when they graduate, or who are more interested in art, literature, ecology, everything! But hey, accounting and business are great majors too (if you like that kind of thing.) It would have been beneficial if some of the staff took some classes at AIC, or if you even half-listened to our "pathetic pouting", then you might have a slight glimpse of what is really going on.

I am an undecided sophomore and was planning on attending AIC if I had not found my passion by mid-junior year. If they close AIC, I will be forced to choose a major I am unsure of in order to graduate.

President Likins is insensitive and conniving.

I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him, and I have felt this way since I started here. His recent actions have made me consider transferring and I have talked to students who feel this way too. President Likins may represent the majority of this school, that is fine, but the minority should not be pushed around or shut down, and that is why I am fighting. When I do graduate, I will have a better understanding of what life and intellectualism really is, and I might be poor when I graduate, but it sounds like the majority of you will always be ignorant.

Sharla Pidd

undeclared sophomore