Bits and Pieces: Cleaning Up the Year

It seemed I stirred much anger with at least one group this year - the ROTC on campus. Here is what I want to say to them: You can't consider me an anti-militarist. I have respect for men and women who defend our country. (I can just hear you sneering right now, but listen.) My grandfather is one of those people. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, was wounded seriously once and then wounded again. He received two Purple Hearts and an Oak Leaf Cluster. What the military does takes huge amounts of bravery and dedication, and they do deserve respect.

To tell the truth, I never had strong feelings about the military. When I wrote my column about the military's zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment, I was not targeting the military; rather I was using them as an example of what is happening in society. I was writing about society's use of catch phrases for convenience purposes.

My impression is that there was too much over-reaction to my column here on campus. I spoke about national news which I researched in Newsweek and the New York Times. What does the ROTC do when they pick up those publications? I may be putting myself down, but nothing I said was new news. It had all been written about and broadcast before.

Is sexual harassment higher in the military than in civilian society? My guess is that it's not; it's just publicized more. Perhaps I'll write a column about all of that one day. However, my previous column was about catch phrases.

Before I get myself into more trouble, I'd better move on to a different topic: Spanish classes here. When I graduated high school, I had four years of Latin and two years of German under my belt. I thought it would be to my advantage to take Spanish because I would be close to Mexico and because Spanish is spoken widely across the United States.

Perhaps you can imagine my fright when I walked into Spanish 101 and 102 classes in which many people had already taken the language for four years. Other classmates lived in households where Spanish was spoken fluently. They just had trouble writing it down. This hurts people like me when it comes down to class participation grades, which are a huge chunk of the final grade. I know there is a separate class for people who have difficulty writing down what they already know how to speak. Perhaps the department needs to dig deeper into students' records. These 101 and 102 classes should be for those who are new to the language.

Overall, I am disappointed with the way the Spanish program is run. In my 101 classes, we were tested in language labs. Now that these labs have been stopped, and now that more emphasis seems to be on participation than testing, I don't feel any connection between my 101 and 102 experiences. I handled Latin and German well, and I would have continued with one of them if I hadn't desired to learn Spanish. However, I feel I can't learn it at this university. I will be - along with many others, I'm sure - at Pima next semester.

And one last thing. This one hits close to home, because it is my home. Living in one of the residence halls, I feel that I deserve some feeling of security. But I don't get this feeling where I live. Outside doors are opened with the swipe of a card. These doors remain open for two minutes, allowing just about anyone to walk in. Doors to wings do not have locks. Just recently a strange man was found in one of the girls' bathrooms. Something needs to be done about this unsafe circumstance before something worse happens.

These two complaints are things I wish would change in the future. And with that, I hope everyone has a terrific summer. Now it's back to packing for me, and after this column - maybe I'd better hurry!

By Jill Dellamalva (columnist)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
May 7, 1997