UA provides many services for transfer students

It is difficult to respond to sweeping absolutes such as the ones in Damion Lee Natali’s Oct. 6 column, “”UA to transfers: You’re on your own.”” His comments “”advisers are clueless”” and “”poor advising is something of an accepted malady here at the UA”” are inaccurate and unfair. It is our privilege to respond to some of the misinformation contained in the editorial, and we are pleased to share the following regarding transfer students.

Students who transfer to the UA are some of the best students we can welcome to our community, and academic advisers enjoy helping them to refine their academic and professional goals. These students are usually ones who have already adjusted to the challenges of college life, so they are focused on achieving academic and personal success. Because these students have very unique needs, many college academic advisers find it preferable to meet with transfer students individually as opposed to asking them to attend a formal transfer orientation. Sometimes these meetings last up to several hours and may involve multiple meetings during the application and transfer process. Advisers have been glad to increase their workloads by making these individual appointments available. A few days before classes start, we host a campuswide welcome for transfer students to provide them some of the important, global information associated with a formal orientation program.

We spend a significant amount of energy discussing ways in which we might better predict the varying needs of students who transfer to the UA and how to make the transfer process as seamless as possible. We meet regularly with our colleagues from Pima Community College and participate in statewide articulation meetings with all of the community colleges. Paul Miller from the UA Transfer Center (yes, we have one) co-teaches STU 210, a course offered by PCC to help students prepare for transitioning to the UA. We are piloting a project this fall to gather course-

demand information from students enrolled in STU 210. Academic advisers from several UA colleges travel weekly to Pima campuses and hold advising appointments. Prospective students are encouraged to contact an academic adviser in the program in which they wish to pursue a program of study.

We both work with a highly dedicated group of professional academic advisers who take advantage of a plethora of development and training opportunities routinely offered to them. One particular group volunteers to author The Weekly Advisor, an advising column that appears Wednesdays in the Arizona Daily Wildcat. The column, or ad, since we gladly pay for the space, is geared toward all new students.

These are not the actions of an institution that does not care about transfer students or employ academic advisers who are clueless. We have not declared victory in terms of meeting the challenge to fulfill all of the needs for all of the transfer students. But to suggest that we could care less and are not trying to serve transfer students well is grossly incorrect.

Roxie L. Catts
Advising Resource Center director
Jerrold E. Hogle
vice provost for instruction

Refuse and Resist doesn’t represent Democrats

I just got finished reading the letters to the Wildcat from Blake Rebling and Alex Hoogasian regarding the Refuse and Resist Protest (Oct. 9’s “”Attack during debate was unprovoked”” and “”Physical violence during debate uncalled for””) and I couldn’t agree with them any more. In fact, I was there with Blake and Mike Huston shortly before the fight broke out. I just want to go on record for saying I am a registered Democrat who is unhappy with Bush and the Republican Party, but I still have many friends who are Republicans and I respect their opinions and right to disagree. Like I was saying, I was talking to Blake and Mike, and as I walked away some deranged, middle-aged man who saw me talking to them gave me a dirty look and said I was a “”fascist.”” I then told him that the two guys holding the protest signs were my friends, but I myself was a registered Democrat. He then proceeded to call me a fascist again and said that the Democrats are just as bad as Republicans. He then said that George Bush was responsible for 9/11 and swore at me.

It’s one thing to disagree with Bush, but to go blindly charging him with 9/11, having no proof, and to call anyone who disagrees with you a fascist is just ridiculous. I must confess, I too am guilty of saying strong things about the Republicans, but my anger is directed at their leaders and not at their supporters. People like Refuse and Resist are hypocrites, and they are the reason why Republicans keep winning elections. They scare the living daylights out of any sensible American and they certainly don’t speak for the majority of Democrats or liberals in general.

Wingnuts on either side are a threat to this country, whether it’s Refuse and Resist and the Nation of Islam on the far left or whether it’s the KKK or Aryan Nation on the far right. These people should never have a voice in national politics. The counter-protesters on the UA Mall were not hurting anyone and had a right to be there. They certainly seemed a lot less scary than the protesters themselves. However, I am sick and tired of the left being defined by these extremists.

So, let me get this off my chest: President Bush was not responsible for 9/11, Bush was not responsible for Hurricane Katrina or the destruction of New Orleans (even though he could have handled it a bit better), Bush is not the next Hitler, the Republicans are not fascist (even though there are quite a bunch of crazy people in their party) and finally, Bush has only two years left in office, so we should move on and focus on the 2008 and 2006 elections! Refuse and Resist needs to take a hike and stop ruining our one chance to take back the Congress in 2006 and White House in 2008. They lost their right to speak after protesting in the ROTC building last year.

Joel Shooster
political science junior

Bush not responsible for problems in Lebanon

In response to the Wildcat’s Friday cover story on the anti-Bush rally, I was deeply sorry for the loss felt by Sarah Sowid in having her family’s home destroyed in Lebanon. However, I fail to see where the correlation lies between Bush and the Israel/Lebanon conflict. What happened was entirely between Israel and Lebanon. Of course the U.S. pledged its allegiance to Israel; that is what allies are for. Thankfully the U.S. did not need to get involved. That being said, I believe that Sowid’s statement that Bush’s foreign policy has destroyed Lebanon was unnecessarily dramatic and all together a gross and misleading overstatement.

It was not an American grenade, it was an Israeli grenade; America had nothing to do with it. Keep in mind, Israel was not on the offensive and childish as it may sound, Lebanon started it and they needed to be held accountable for the kidnappings committed by Hezbollah. This modern pacifist idea that people can commit atrocious crimes, whether it be kidnapping Israeli soldiers or hijacking airliners, with impunity is getting old. Again, the loss of Sowid’s family home is regrettable, but it would be to her benefit to actually consider who is to blame versus who she is pointing fingers at. It seems a stretch to say that Bush is responsible for the destruction in Lebanon.

Bethany Fourmy
pre-med junior

Iran years from nukes as North Korea detonates

The average person listening in to FOX News (uninformed soul), CNN or MSNBC is given an evil image of the president of Iran. How do you define a terrorist? The media portrays a terrorist as Muslim, from the Middle East and hating America for some inexplicable reason. I would argue that a terrorist is anyone who violently expresses his or her views of destroying a nation with no regard to human life. Who fits such a description? That would be Kim Jung Il, dictator of North Korea.

Which leads me to my point: North Korea has just detonated a nuclear bomb, expressing their nuclear program is in operation,and not peaceful. After the detonation, politicians were all over the televisions saying how catastrophic nuclear North Korea could be; yet Bush gets on the television saying he believes diplomacy must prevail.

I must ask you Mr. President, foreign policy leader of America: Where is your diplomacy with Iran? Where was your diplomacy with Iraq? Where was your diplomacy with Lebanon?

Iran is far from having nuclear weapons. Look up the BBC article titled “”Iran ‘years from nuclear bomb.'”” It’s clear that Iran does not have the means, or the motives. Another quote: “”The CIA says 10 years to a (nuclear) bomb,”” he said. It is obvious that Iran, Iraq or any other Middle Eastern country is not a threat to the United States in comparison to North Korea. The U.S. has been “”creating democracies”” in many of these nations because this is the last justification, with lack of weapons of mass destruction.

Look at the evidence: We are not safe when our biggest enemy detonates a nuclear bomb. Bush calls North Korea’s administration (Dictator Il) an “”axis of evil.”” With the threat of war in Iran circulating the media, and the recent launch of the USS Enterprise, we must question how far our government will go without any basis at all. It is illogical to draw a connection between nuclear North Korea and Iran, yet Israel makes this connection without hesitating? I am lost, what is the “”war on terror””?

John Bierman
electrical engineering freshman

Prop. 107 good for the community

Proposition 107, if passed, will be a great leap forward for democracy. Aside from the obvious effects (banning gay marriage), it also has other benefits. It takes an issue that the Legislature won’t touch with a 10-foot pole and drops it into the hands of the voting majority. Letting the people decide is what America was founded on, and if a majority of Arizonans decide that gays should not get married, then it should be solidified into our Constitution so it will be safe from the Supreme Court.

Alex Hoogasian
political science senior