Candidates should use caution when signing promises
In regards to the opinion by Evan Lisull and Connor Mendenhall (“”Candidates: Just say no to new fees,”” Feb. 17, 2009), I would like to speak on behalf of an uninformed candidate and voter. First off, these two individuals are currently running an online blog called desertlamp.com. The basis of their stories has to do with ASUA and what is going on within the organization.
I am running for ASUA Senate. These two individuals pretty much demanded all of the candidates in an e-mail to sign the no new fees initiative. The no new fees initiative is telling candidates that if elected to ASUA Senate in March, they would promise to disapprove of any fee brought up. Being very quick to my decision, I signed it to make the deadline. They had forced it onto me, and after looking deeper into what they were saying, I disapprove of their ideas about the new fees.
The reason why I write this letter is because a few students who read the blog and did not like the fact that I signed it, approached me. I would like you guys to take my name off of the list and to be more rational when asking people to sign on contracts.
I support the campus fees, which are feasible and will do well for the student body. At the same time, however, if these fees are very expensive for the student body, and or do not support the students well enough, I do not support it because it is adding up to what students already pay to come here. For example, when desertlamp.com mentioned the “”30 component of the Information Technology/Library fee to rise $180 per student per semester.”” I was in shock about it. I do think there should a fee increase on this but not six times the current amount. It should be something that students can pay for and still have money on the side.
Why say no when they are important? We should not and I do not think that the editors need to force anything on the candidates, but politely ask them. Candidates, do your research before you sign onto something.
Aaron Elyachar
political science freshman
Rec Center shouldn’t refuse service to students without CatCards
As a UA Recreation Center member, owner of a $75 Fitness Pass, and a pending personal trainee, I thought I would relieve some stress by attending a “”Muscle Pump”” class and then hitting the elliptical machine for some cardio. I raced to the Rec Center, found parking and, with a springy step in my tennies, approached the business desk. As it turned out, my class had been canceled. My instructor was sick, kind of like when I showed up for the “”Wildcat Dolls”” class the previous Friday and the instructor hadn’t shown up. Not to be deterred, I decided to stay and get my heart pumping anyway.
One problem: I couldn’t find my CatCard. Oh well, I thought. Last time this happened, the staff simply looked me up on a computer to confirm my full-time enrollment. I asked a staffer to look me up and she said she couldn’t let me in without a CatCard. I asked to speak to a supervisor and she referred me to the young woman standing right next to her. The supervisor said she would let me in if I showed her a picture ID and “”self-sponsored”” for $5. I asked if I could get a refund if I showed her my CatCard next time. Negative.
As I pleaded, the supervisor smiled amusedly and glanced at her coworkers. I asked her if she would call security if I worked out anyway at my own risk, and she confirmed that yes, she would “”call someone to escort (me) out.””
“”I never got a call back for the personal training request form I filled out,”” I said. The supervisor looked for my form and informed me that she didn’t have it. Would I like to fill out a new one? I filled out a new form and the supervisor wrote down the director’s phone number for me so that I might petition for a policy change. I left the Rec Center, the only sweat on my brow not from my workout but from a lost bureaucratic struggle.
If the Rec Center doesn’t let its members in without a CatCard for liability reasons, as the supervisor told me, then why do they let them in with a picture ID and $5? When will the Rec Center start serving its paying members – students who could, were there not a mandatory fee tacked onto their tuition, choose Gold’s Gym or L.A. Fitness or the Racquet Club?
Shelby Driscoll
English senior
Darwin Day failed by pitting science, religion against each other
I imagine that creationists and intelligent design advocates loved how the recent Darwin Day played out (his 200th birthday); it vindicated their argument that evolutionary biology has an agenda against religion.
The Darwin Day expo featured a slide show with Darwin Fish, What Would Darwin Do?, and even Darwin vs. God. I applaud the expo for exposing the campus and general public to evolution, but feel that using a religion’s symbols, ethic and deity to do so is a poor strategy and philosophically suspect. If the point of those particular slides was to emphasize that creationism and intelligent design are not science, then the objective was admirable but the means counterproductive to reaching those people. Or, if the point was to set up evolution and Christianity as mutually exclusive and necessarily antagonistic worldviews, then the creationists found a reason to start a new Genesis bible study and science has overstepped its bounds.
As the National Academy of Sciences has stated, “”Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.”” By shedding the unnecessary religious symbolism, next year’s Darwin Day might be able to make a few more converts – not to a particular metaphysical worldview but to the scientific fact of evolution.
LaRue Diehl
ecology and evolutionary biology junior
