UA fans: Continue Îgood-natured rivalry' with ASU
On Sunday, the UA men's basketball team will play its final home game of the season. It is nice to know that UA fans will continue a tradition of good-natured rivalry with the ASU Sun Devils. Good sportsmanship and class are hallmarks of UA teams, students and fans.
Janet Bingham
University Advancement vice president
Proceeds from parking tickets put to good use
Regarding your article on parking tickets at the university: Having spent a great deal of time looking for a parking space last week visiting my two sons at the UA, I fully support your use of proceeds to help pay for more garages.
Being particularly interested in Andrew Grimes' concern over what the university does with HIS money, I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged that perhaps he will spend some of HIS own money on his education next year!
David Grimes
San Marino, Calif., resident
Athletics shouldn't use women as Îsex objects'
I am not very familiar with the recruiting practices of many athletics departments, but I was appalled to find that universities, including our own, have sanctioned programs that promote using women as sex objects. I can understand athletics departments having their own personal tour guides and assistants for recruits, but there were many things in the article yesterday by Sarah Stanton that I just did not understand. One of the main quotes by Dan Berezowitz excused the program by saying, "Guys like girls; it's marketing." I understand that sex does sell, but I would hope in an academic environment, such as that of the UA, that sex would not be used to sell. It was also stated that the hostesses do not wear revealing clothing or participate in any after-hours activities; however, the point still stands that the university is using women, and only women, to sell these recruits. The article claimed the hostesses do the same job as the office of orientation, but, last I checked, the office of orientation allowed women and men to lead tours around campus. Since there are no male members of the Arizona Angels, the program seems to be engaging in sex discrimination to me. Lastly, one of the hostesses stated, "The recruits aren't as intimidated by us as they could be by the football players." Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't these "intimidating football players" their possible future teammates? I love our athletics department here and the school spirit around it, but I think better hospitality could be given to recruits by student athletes, who we all know can better portray the future these recruits might have at the university. At the very least, they could more accurately represent the student body at the UA without degrading women in the process.
Ann VerSteeg
psychology senior
Don't take away UA's little amount of grass for birds
I am writing in response to professor Michael Rosenzweig's position on replacing grass with mesquite trees for the sake of bringing more birds in.
In my opinion, the university is for students to learn, enjoy life and go on to what their chosen calling is. Most students come from either somewhere else in the state or from some other state. The UA becomes their home for anywhere from four to 12 years. Why should their semi-permanent home look like a wasteland? There just isn't enough grass in the Tucson area as it is? Why take away what little there is for a few birds?
Does the professor realize that mesquite trees suck up water like a man who's been lost in the desert for a week? It's the same in Florida. Pepper trees suck up water and are a pain to get rid of.
I suggest that Michael Rosenzweig build a reserve somewhere for the birds he wants and leave the UA to be a haven for human life.
Patrick Earl
athletics department staff member
Armed populaces can succeed in this world
In Thursday's Wildcat, Mr. Fry said, "I'd like to see this fallacious argument that an armed populace would be able to overthrow a modern, mechanized military state put to rest." Well, he seems to ignore the many instances where armed populaces have succeeded. The Vietnamese succeeded. The Palestinians have succeeded in getting at least tacit agreements for a state. The Kurds succeeded in establishing an autonomous region. And then just three days ago, the Haitians succeeded in laying siege to their capital city. All these groups succeeded by using terror and weapons distributed to civilians. So the reality is that an armed populace, willing to die for its beliefs, can win wars with large mechanized armies.
Seth Frantzman
UA alumnus
Separate organization needed for grad students
As a current graduate student at the UA, I have to object to Mr. Aguilar's statement that the "graduate council does a poor job of representing students" and that "ASUA should be the voice for all students." While it may be true that ASUA should be advocating for all students, this has historically not been the case. Graduate students have consistently been unable to get ASUA to divide its resources (both economic and "visibility" capital) proportionally between the graduate and undergraduate populations; hence the split between ASUA and the graduate professional student council about 10 years ago.
GPSC, on the other hand, has devoted all of its quite meager resources to funding graduate student clubs, graduate student conferences here at the UA, travel funding to peer-reviewed conferences and events in appreciation of all the work graduate students perform at the UA. ASUA does not contribute to these efforts, despite the budget disparity between the organizations.
In addition, GPSC has successfully advocated for inexpensive health care for graduate students and free health care for the graduate student employees of the UA, the teaching assistants and resident assistants. Being very conscious of the importance of attracting high quality graduate students to the UA campus, GPSC presidents have been active in advocating for tuition remission for TAs and RAs and for a specific fund for needy graduate students. In my time here, ASUA has demonstrated little or no awareness of how important such efforts are to achieving excellence at this institution.
In short, there seems to be a clear need for a separate organization for graduate students at the UA. Nevertheless, it would be wonderful if there were more collaboration between GPSC and ASUA, since UA students in general have many interests in common ÷ like being the only Pac-10 school without an on-campus child care facility.
Amanda L. Brobbel
literature graduate student