Abstinence slows AIDS in Africa

Alex Dong's ignorant rant regarding the Global Fund and AIDS in Africa in Friday's Wildcat was totally misguided and obviously from someone who has never been to Africa and seen the epidemic firsthand. First off, the abstinence programs supported by the Bush administration are the only ones that are actually stemming the growth of AIDS and evidence of this is clear in countries like Senegal or Kenya and in the Indian and Muslim communities of Botswana and South Africa. These places have virtually stopped the spread of AIDS by encouraging men to not visit prostitutes and encouraging people to not have premarital sex. These concepts may seem odd in America, where sex is prevalent, but a simple look at a map of Africa will show that AIDS is most prevalent in communities where religion does not prohibit promiscuity or where governments try to cover up the true epidemic. Global Fund wastes its time giving drugs to the sick, rather then stopping AIDS before it spreads.

Seth Frantzman
UA alumnus

Students shouldn't cry to their parents

I am disgusted and ashamed with the treatment of professor J. Jefferson Reid regarding the educational content of his university level course. I find that a Ph.D.-level public university professor does not have to defend or answer to a student's parents for the comments given within the educational realm of their class. These parents demonstrated both inappropriate and poor judgment by going directly to the department head, rather than discussing the comments with the professor directly. The disturbing face that these few parents feel that they can dictate the content of a university level course, brings to light a very serious issue in education today.

As a local middle school teacher, I am constantly facing harassment, personal and professional degradation from parents regarding the content taught. Yet my all subject content is detailed and mandated by the state of Arizona, including a discussion of the scientific evolutionary theory in middle and high school.

The Constitution of the United States allocates a "free and public" education for all individuals from age 3 to 18 years old. Thus, if parents do not approve of content material, they can remove their child from a specific portion of the class, request alternative assignments or enroll their student in a private institution. However, the entrance to a university is not a given right. After age 18, higher education is given on the basis of a person's ability, meeting requirements and standards of the institution and tuition payment. If the student does not approve of content material, they may change courses or institutions.

The university is the highest level of academia in the world. It is an institution of higher learning where questions are asked and research used to seek answers. If questions are no longer allowed to be asked, then there is no value in any higher education degree.

Melissa Evers
UA alumna

Students shouldn't 'shut down' when challenged

I would like to respond to the article titled, "Anthro prof 'explains' mention of evolution." As a former student of professor Reid, I can state with every confidence that he would never present material in the classroom in a biased fashion, nor would he intentionally seek to offend his students.

Furthermore, the incident that took place in his classroom is quite common and results from the failure of students to understand the pedagogical methods of educators. I have likewise incorporated controversial material into my classes with the sole purpose of stimulating discussion among my students. Unfortunately, many students tend to shut down intellectually the moment their personal beliefs are challenged. This is troubling, and I would like to take this opportunity to propose a suggestion to the students who found offense in professor Reid's lecture, and to students with a similar frame of mind.

As students, your purpose in the university is to acquire knowledge. Well-rounded knowledge is derived from a complete explanation of all extant theories, several of which may offend. However offensive these theories may be, it is essential that students are not selective in their learning.

For example, a few weeks ago in my own history class a student mentioned that he opposed the study of religion, but understood its importance within the context of our class discussion on 14th-century Spanish art. In my courses, I do not ask students to subscribe to various theories or beliefs, only that they consider their implications. I believe this is what professor Reid was attempting to do, and I hope the students of the university will come to recognize that we as educators seek to provide them with all available information in an unbiased fashion.

Kathryn Jasper
History graduate student

Women 'spanking' men in educational statistics

This December, my sister, who is two years younger, will graduate summa cum laude from the University of San Francisco while I, in the throes of my end-of-the-semester burnout, can't even drag my rear end to class. She isn't smarter than her brother, just willing to work harder. And this portrait may represent a larger trend in our society.

Despite all the fashionable victimhood-mongering, girls are not only outperforming guys from kindergarten to graduate school, but doing it in increasing numbers, according to a recent report by the United States Department of Education. The 2000 census showed that undergraduate females outnumbered males by 10 percent. Every year it seems that girls' test scores and GPAs improve, while guys struggle even more. While these successes are great news for our society and for the well-being of our sisters and future wives, the failures are devastating to the morale of all of us blessed with a Y-chromosome. We're getting spanked. By girls.

What is going on? Has PlayStation sapped our mojo and doomed us to relative infantile behavior? Have we become wholly divorced from our ancient masculine selves that once ruled all we surveyed? My hat goes off to the sex that's beating us fair and square. Bret Reed
senior majoring in English

Offended students should leave university, country

It is nearly impossible to express my astonishment at the recent article "Anthro prof 'explains' mention of evolution" on Friday's front page. Last year I attended the class mentioned in the article: Jefferson Reid's Anthropology 205: "Clovis to Coronado" for my general education requirements. The class was engaging and demonstrated a deep respect for the peoples and beliefs of the Southwest, and professor Reid meticulously and conscientiously asserted a tolerance of all worldviews, both religious and scientific, and stated many times that the two were not mutually exclusive.

How ironic, then, that Reid would be forced to apologize (for forced he certainly was) for the very lecture in which he argued that Western science did not marginalize spiritual belief. The teachers of higher education should not be forced to cater to the overly sensitive few to the overall the detriment of education. Certain students who closed-mindedly attack the beliefs of others, whatever those beliefs may be, do a disservice to the entire community.

The article was a hilarious example of pusillanimous censorship: independent adults calling in their parents like schoolchildren for a playground fight. Someone terrified of ideas they don't agree with, whether those views be Western scientific or religious, should consider leaving this university and country, where the free exchange of ideas is the basis of our society.

Nick Godlove
junior majoring in English and creative writing

Reid did his duty as an educator by apologizing

I agree with the editorial staff's lamentations regarding the students that did not personally speak to professor Reid, but instead had their parents intervene on their behalf. However, I must disagree with the comments made regarding professor Reid's address to the class.

In reading the article posted in the Wildcat, it is obvious that the majority of the class were not offended by professor Reid's original comments. However, if professor Reid's comments raised so much concern among even a few of his students, it is in his complete right as a conscientious educator to address these concerns. In my opinion the best educators try to take into account all of their students opinions. It is also obvious that these students did not grasp professor Reid's point in using this article. And again, as an educator Reid was merely doing his job thoroughly - clearing up any misunderstandings. Reid is not compromising either himself or the content of his course by clearing up the air. I believe that instead, he is simply distinguishing himself as a caring instructor in acknowledging the concern of his students.

Tina Manne
Ph.D. student, department of anthropology

Evolution goes hand-in-hand with all other science

Some years back, while teaching a first-year chemistry course, I gave a lecture on radioactive dating and how it is used in determining the age of rocks. I was strictly following the syllabus and the textbook and did not digress into either evolutionary theory or fossil records, which are outside the scope of my lectures. Yet a student got up in the middle of my lecture and left, but not before yelling, "You believe all that crap?"

That incident illustrates the crux of the problem. If you don't want to accept evolution, you have to consider not only good deal of biology, but also the well-established ideas in chemistry, physics, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics and even modern anthropology as "crap." I used the word "accept" instead of "believe" since, strictly speaking, the latter word does not have any meaning in science. In any serious science, belief and disbelief go hand in hand.

In this context it is worth noting that creationists explanation for fossil records is often based on the biblical account of flood. Most biblical scholars, however, agree that the story was adapted from the much earlier Sumerian classic, "Gilgamesh." Hence, one cannot escape the conclusion that the ultimate authority for creationists' belief is a pagan legend.

G. K. Vemulapalli
associate professor emeritus of chemistry