Students should attend tuition-setting hearings Nov. 15

I applaud David Francis for bringing attention to the upcoming tuition-setting process in his column Monday.

However, the date for the on-campus tuition hearings was incorrect. These hearings actually will occur on Nov. 15 at all of the public university campuses across the state. This is a great opportunity for all students to voice their opinions on tuition for the 2007-2008 academic year. The Arizona Board of Regents will set tuition at its meeting Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, during which the regents will not hear public comment on tuition. This makes it all the more important that students attend the Nov. 15 hearing.

I encourage all students to voice their opinions on tuition not only at the board of regents’ tuition hearings, but also to their college councils, student governments and the Arizona Students’ Association.

Serena Unrein
interim executive director Arizona Students’ Association

Party during school hours inappropriate, an affront to education

I would like to point out the rather obvious misguided event that occurred last week. Someone, in an effort to do a good thing, forgot that the primary purpose of the UA is, and should be, education. This someone actually scheduled former President Peter Likins’ “”going away event”” on a weekday (Thursday), during a time when classes were scheduled. I, and many others, work during the day and attend class in the late afternoon or evening, rush to the UA, assume we will be able to park in the Second Street Parking Garage and might just make it to class, or only be a few minutes late. On that Thursday, police in uniforms were lined up at the entrance to the garage to turn students away because the garage had been reserved for the party or event. I was already 10 minutes late, as I am a teacher and something came up at school. The police informed me that I had a choice of going off campus; trying to find parking at another garage some distance from the College of Education, hiking to class and hiking back to my car afterwards, in the dark; or calling SafeRide. After all the hiking to and from, I would have missed close to an hour of class, as I am not a spring chicken and don’t hike very fast.

I spent in the neighborhood of $900 for that class and should have been allowed to park in the nearest garage and attend in a timely manner. That I wasn’t allowed to is not acceptable. It is right up there with not being able to use the Main Library on game days because the entire campus is locked up for parking by sports fans. (I do understand sports generate revenues for the UA.) But how do you justify a party during class time? Couldn’t the “”event”” have been planned for a Friday evening or on the weekend, so as to minimize the disruption to the educational process? Couldn’t the planners have been a little more sensitive to the mission of the school? I just want to know why such a clueless person was allowed to plan this event. Did he not go to college? Does he not understand needing to get to class after a full day of work, which means parking within a reasonable distance from class? It is hard to be sympathetic to the UA whining about needing money to offer decent courses to its students when the UA itself apparently doesn’t value education. Just my opinion.

Cheryl Beran
educational leadership graduate student

No day inappropriate for debate

Why should the anniversary of an intensely political event preclude us from talking about said event in any terms other than mournful reverence? Sept. 11 carries a great deal more meaning than the deaths of 3,000 people. Speaking for the far left, if I may, that day five years ago was the unfortunate result of years of abusive political and economic policies towards the Middle East. Granted that our reaction to Sept. 11 was an intensification of those failed policies, it’s all the more reason to keep talking about it. Debating the course from here so as to not see it happen again, I don’t think is in any way disrespectful to those who died. While there are ways of debating that would be disrespectful, I didn’t see any of the debate last Monday, and so can’t weigh in there. But there isn’t any reason that makes debate in itself unacceptable.

Matt Styer
junior majoring in international studies and linguistics

Shelton’s quota system amounts to racism

After reading yesterday’s Arizona Daily Wildcat, I found myself in disbelief. The article titled “”Shelton wants UA 25% Hispanic”” is appalling. This article offends me as a Hispanic, as a student at this university and as an American citizen. Setting quotas or goals for ethnic diversity at our university is a big step in the wrong direction. Students shouldn’t be admitted into school because of their race, creed, color or religion; they should be admitted because of their academic merits. Students should be admitted to our campus and all campuses because they are qualified. We are all citizens, and we should all be treated equally; you shouldn’t get a helping hand because of your race or because you are a “”minority.”” If we allow our school to set goals for racial diversity and search to add more Hispanics over other races then our school is sponsoring racism. Our country is the land of opportunity and equality, and if our university is setting goals for race, then it goes against our country’s core philosophy of equality.

Sean O’Neill
political science senior

University policy segregates

Monday’s article concerning Hispanic student enrollment indicates that the UA has made positive progress in neither upholding the individual nor helping students relate to those fellow students coming from different backgrounds.

Even more troubling than the perceived need to use artificial racial preferences to increase enrollment of a specific ethnicity at the UA is some of the reasoning behind it, most noticeably that of those who express fear of social isolation if not enough fellow students who share their own ethnicity attend the university.

University policy on multiple levels is bent on painting us students with a large brush into segregated factions whose members are apparently unable to develop social and professional relationships with members of any other faction. “”Student affairs”” offices split students into their own little racial hangouts. The greek system’s answer to diversity problems is to separate minorities into their own little fraternities and sororities apart from the others. The campus at large is no longer made up of over 35,000 individual students with unique thoughts, abilities and experiences; it is rather a collection of arbitrary demographic numbers based, if I may paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., upon the color of our skin rather than the content of our character.

So long as the university continues to encourage segregation between ethnicities, we will have made progress neither through the term of our new university president nor since the days of the forced segregation against which good and decent Americans of all ethnicities fought mere decades ago.

Garrett O’Hara
political science senior

‘Bear Down Fridays’ a great addition to campus life

I am writing in recognition of the efforts put forth by the “”Zona Zoo Crew,”” the Associated Students of the University of Arizona and Arizona Athletics with their collective creation of “”Bear Down Fridays.”” I feel that these events will undoubtedly help boost school spirit, student attendance and ticket sales for all athletic events, and campus morale in general. UA’s status is somewhat of a “”transplant campus,”” which means school spirit is sometimes hard to create even with an athletic department as successful as ours. However, with events like this, soon school spirit will become a stronger tradition on our campus. The setting they chose for these events was excellent, and the atmosphere they created was something I feel the UA had been lacking for a while. The appearances by Jim Livengood, the cheer squads and the Pride of Arizona made for an exciting way to kick off a weekend on campus. I would like to encourage all of the people, businesses and organizations involved to continue their hard work with these pep rallies even though they may suffer growing pains. Often times launching projects like these may be unfulfilling and thankless, but if Bear Down Fridays persevere, they will certainly become a tradition for all UA students for years to come. I am convinced that by sticking with this idea, each Bear Down Friday will eventually spill over and help create a game day experience to rival the best college sports have to offer. So keep up the good work! Go Cats, Bear Down and beat the Trojans!

Tate Wyly
engineering management senior