The Wildcat family has known all along how much potential the school has, but this week the UA proved its worth to the rest of the nation. On Monday, the National Science Foundation ranked the UA 21st in the nation based on research expenditures for the 2004 fiscal year, up one spot from last year. Meanwhile, the Princeton Review released the results of its yearly student survey, which ranked the Arizona Daily Wildcat the No. 2 college paper in the nation, just behind the Yale Daily News. The Honors College also received favorable mention in Monday’s Time magazine for offering top-notch advising, dorms and special course sections. The Princeton Review also ranked the UA No. 18 among party schools, 11th in use of hard liquor and 19th in beer drinking. For exhibiting clear excellence in so many arenas and proving itself on par with the best schools in the nation, the UA and its multitalented students get a pass.
A student’s life rarely operates on a standard nine-to-five schedule, but past transportation offerings on campus seemed to be designed for one. We can all be grateful that that’s no longer the case. Last semester, Associated Students of the University of Arizona launched CatsRIDDE, filling a much-needed gap in transportation for students on weekend nights. Now Parking and Transportation services has implemented NightCat, a free service for UA students and employees providing transportation around campus from 6:05 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. The service will likely allow SafeRide, ASUA’s nightly transportation service, to focus on taking students off campus. For meeting a pressing need, both in terms of safety and convenience, NightCat gets a pass.
Budget woes aren’t new anywhere on the UA campus, but Arizona Athletics’ decision to raise student ticket prices more than 71 percent in one semester is borderline ridiculous. Sure, we can understand a need to raise ticket prices gradually, say, over the course of a couple of years, but a spike this large in a matter of months reeks of an insolent selfishness on the part of Arizona Athletics. After a jump from No. 7 to the priciest school for student ticket prices in the Pacific 10 Conference, it seems that the big guys have forgotten that students are the reason the athletics department is here. For high prices that bring low morale, the Arizona Athletics price increase gets a fail.
In residence halls throughout campus, the first few weeks of the semester have traditionally found numerous vagabond students sharing a temporary spot in a resident assistant’s room, or taking up camp in a makeshift room in a public space. However, through Residence Life’s careful planning and use of a new formula, only 30 students were without a permanent room at the start of the semester. What’s more, almost all residence hall construction projects have been completed. For doing its job far better than it has in recent years, Residence Life gets a pass.
