It’s a free ride…
Cats Realizing the Importance of a Designated Driver Escort, or CatsRidde, is one of the Associated Students of the University of Arizona’s best new programs. It’s too bad the student body isn’t taking advantage of it. The program offers rides free of charge to students on Saturday nights from 10 p.m. until 3 a.m. The only thing students need to do to take advantage of this service is fill out a waiver. This simple step, however, seems to be too much trouble for everyone except the 30 students who had submitted their forms as of Wednesday. Not a single person has requested a ride from the service in the past three weeks, though intuition and statistics suggest that at least a few Wildcats could have benefited from one. This great and necessary program certainly earns a pass, but for failing to take advantage of it, the student body gets a fail.
A true student union
Despite aggressive campaigning by its proponents, students turned down a $40 student union fee by a huge margin this week. Though the vote will likely mean higher food prices in the future, that’s a fair trade; after all, it makes sense to charge the people who use union services for them, rather than all students. Hopefully, union Director Dan Adams will get the message that students aren’t interested in viewing ads in the unions on plasma screen tvs or further contributing to CSIL’s budget. It’s heartening to see that students actually paid attention to the issue and voted in a unified, reasonable way. For that reason, the 2,700 students who participated in the special election get a pass.
Have a heart
April is national “”Donate Life”” month – a time to focus attention on the dire need for and importance of organ donors. Every single day, 18 Americans die while waiting for organs; last year, 67 of those deaths were in Arizona. The Students for Organ Donation at the UA are observing the organ donation awareness month by hosting their second annual organ-donor registration drive. They set the admirably ambitious goal of registering 500 students, after last year’s successful registration of more than 400. However, students have been less receptive this year, and the group is far from reaching its goal. For not taking the important steps to help others live on by registering as donors, the student body gets a fail.
Copping out
Few experiences are more frightening than sexual assault, especially the likes of which the UA saw April 7. A female student sleeping in her room in Arizona-Sonora Residence Hall awoke around 5 a.m. to find a male sexually assaulting her. The attacker ran off after the student screamed, and police have yet to make any arrests in the case. The prospect of such heinous crimes occurring on campus is frightening, which is why it is disheartening to see the University of Arizona Police Department so aloof at a key moment. UAPD posted campus alerts in residence halls but failed to release any details to the Arizona Daily Wildcat. When a reporter tried to call police, all she got was voicemail and unreturned pages. Not following up on weekend minor in possession totals or the shenanigans of campus partiers is one thing, but not providing the public with accurate information about a dangerous crime like sexual assault is abhorrent. For failing to provide the UA with timely, accurate information, UAPD gets a fail.
