To the Editor:
As a University of Southern Maine alumna and a current law student at Cornell University, I had to respond to Ms. Yarlott’s letter about USM’s English department and academic reform. I’d like to note, first of all, that Ms. Yarlott didn’t give a full or fair account of the facts surrounding the 1969 takeover of Willard Straight Hall, Cornell’s student union.
I would dispute that the Willard Straight takeover “set the stage” for “the current practice of tailoring college classes to the whim and fancy of popular ideology.” The takeover occurred in response to a cross-burning at a black women’s dorm on campus, and also in response to the perceived unequal treatment of black students after a Vietnam War protest. The students were not armed when they took over the Straight – in fact, they only armed themselves after white students broke into the occupied building and campus police took no action to stop them. The Willard Straight Hall takeover was primarily motivated by racial concerns, not academic ones.
Admittedly, one of the issues of the students was the creation of an African Studies department. The Afro-American Society had been petitioning Cornell’s administration for the creation of such a program for two years, with no response. However, it is unfair to characterize the student takeover as a “demand for academic reform.” The motto of Cornell University is “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any subject.” The students did not ask for any departments to be taken away or for class offerings to be changed or reduced. Instead, per Cornell’s motto, students asked for an opportunity to receive instruction in African Studies, in addition to existing programs. After the Willard Straight takeover, the opportunity was granted.
I do agree with Ms. Yarlott that culture-based classes might be better off in a different department than the English department. However, course offerings are largely driven by student demand. If few students want the “traditional” classes, and if these classes are not required by the department (as I was not an English major, I am unfamiliar with English department requirements), their enrollment will be limited, and students will flock to the courses that they are more interested in. In this case, apparently, what students want is what Ms. Yarlott calls “lita-lite.”
Although I would not necessarily say, as Ms. Yarlott does, that universities are “doing away with the essential, tried-and-true approach that made America such a great place to go to school,” I agree that the traditional approach isn’t the easiest path to take at USM, but it can be followed if one seeks it out.
I certainly never had to take part in “fanatical pre-researching of courses” as part of the process to receive a traditional education. Universities largely cater to the demands of students. If it is true that “traditional” classes are few and far between at USM, perhaps the students should be polled to find out why they’re more interested in taking “lita-lite.”
Susan Paakkonen, USM Class of 2002, Cornell Law School Class of 2005
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To the Editor,
I have tried twice by phone and e-mail in the past to get The Free Press to do a story on 1991 Gulf War Vets, but to no avail. I am deeply bothered and upset that there has been so much anti-war coverage in The Free Press being the public forum that it should be.
What bothers me even further is that a minority receives the coverage that they do. As a veteran I am not the minority, I am the unheard majority. I would think that in the interest of non-biased journalism, The Free Press would have actively sought out one of the many veterans on campus from the previous wars for an interview, but I would guess it is bit difficult when one fails to remove their blinders and then leave the comfort of their office.
By the way, the easiest way to find a war veteran is to ask around campus or even better yet look at some of the license plates in the parking lots, they are easy to spot as they are designated “VETERAN” at the bottom.
As a war veteran, I am shocked that so many people take their freedom for granted as many have at USM. I enlisted in the Navy Seabees in 1987, I did so because that was the thing to do back then and it was a way to see the world. I also understood that I may be put in harm’s way from time to time, but that was a given thing about the job that most understood. As a young man I was put into the position of seeing and doing things that most would never do, however I knew that it had to be done and did so with few regrets even to this day.
A tour of duty that I will never forget is the one into Northern Iraq in the spring of 1991; my job was to help with the resettlement of the Kurdish people. I spent about two months in Iraq helping to bring the Kurds out of the mountains where they had fled to avoid being killed by Sadaam and his thugs.
When I left Iraq in late June of 1991, the Kurds protested our withdrawal because they knew that Sadaam would once again commit genocide against their people as he had in the past. The one thing that I will never forget is the city blocks that were leveled throughout the northern part of the country. The homes that were destroyed belonged to the Kurdish people by the way, who had done nothing wrong other being the faction of people that they were.
The above is an example of what our brave men and women in the armed forces are up against and fighting for in the current war against Iraq, and I should hope that we all remember this.
The real heroes are the ones out there fighting for our freedom, not the minority out there protesting war such as some of the embarrassing USM professors and students who have even been arrested for such acts while we are a nation at war.
Paul M. Kalb
Junior, Social Work
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To the Editor:
I’ve been a consistent reader of The Free Press since my freshman year, but sometimes I wonder why I continue to do so. I’ve noticed that more and more of the articles tend to have negative slants and that saddens and angers me. There’s more to this campus then drugs, drinking, activists and arrests.
I noticed there wasn’t a single article about the USM Semi-Formal, which was on Friday, April 11 where 100 percent of the proceeds they made went to the Make-A-Wish Foundation in Maine. Did you know that over 100 tickets had been sold? I don’t know how you couldn’t have known since there were posters for it all over Portland and Gorham.
I’ve also noticed there wasn’t a single article about the benefit concert put on by the Gorham A Cappella groups which was on Saturday, April 12. I’ve noticed there’s nothing in The Free Press promoting the Spring Fling, which is going to be held in Gorham from Thursday, April 24 to Sunday, April 27. Why would you just be writing about Thirsty Thursday’s when they have been going on since the beginning of the year and have been every year since I’ve been here? When’s the last time you wrote about all the things that Res-Life and its RAs do for its Gorham and Portland residents? When’s the last time Meet Joe Student has been a resident of the Gorham campus?
I’ve also noticed there has been a serious lack of articles about the positive things that Greek life is doing. Did you know we have been/are actively pursuing philanthropies through out this entire year, all of us had rushes and pledged in new brothers and sisters, but again there wasn’t anything written to promote the good things we do.
Not to mention that horrible half-ass section in this week’s Free Press about the all Greek BBQ. All you bothered to write was that Greeks celebrate with roasted meat, I’m sorry but that isn’t even the half of what we did.
First of all there are vegetarians who are Greek and we even had veggie burgers served, not to mention you didn’t even bother to find out what we were having the BBQ for. All you did was waste space by putting in a huge picture of two cooks who have nothing to do with Greek Life and then you don’t even bother to get the whole face of the Phi Kap brother you photographed. This is ridiculous! Your photographer was there the whole time taking tons of pictures, why didn’t he jot down some notes about the speeches given by each chapter president or Joe Austin? Did you know that all the Greek chapters were represented at the BBQ as well?
What ever happened to the section in the paper that your previous editor gave to Greek life? How do you expect to learn anything about us when you have one of your reporter’s call the GWC president while she’s at work the day before the paper goes to press asking what the Greek’s are doing for Earth Day. C’mon now folks, how can you expect to have any sort of relationship when your reporter calls us last minute when they obviously don’t really care what we have to say anyways. Why didn’t he go to the Greek BBQ, he might have learned an awful lot about us that evening.
When’s the last time your reporters have even been to the Gorham campus to see what’s even going on here? You seem to pride yourselves on writing what the people like to read, but when’s the last time you polled the people to see if we even like or care about the things you write about now?
You’ve taken such care to include the non-traditional students at this school that you’ve forgotten and ignored those of us who are traditional residential students. To the editor, I’d like to say come down off your high horse and face the music. You’ve done an awesome job turning your back on the Gorham campus, next time you want to preach about being disrespected take a good look at your paper and ask yourself does that issue honestly represent both of the campuses?
Take a look at the list you yourself put in the paper and tell me how many of those are about Gorham? Take your sob story about having no life and how you all work so hard and shove it! You chose this job and you chose to be editor, nobody’s forcing any of you to be there. You have a responsibility to the student population to report not just the negative but the positive as well.
As for your drug culture article, take a walk into downtown Gorham or go to Portland High School, you’ll find all the same drugs there with the same easy access as you say we have here on campus so don’t make it sound like Gorham has some secret covert [sic] drug smuggling ring and all of USM is doomed. Maybe if you focused a little more energy on Gorham you’d realize we’ve done a social norms survey the past two years about the drinking and drug norms on this campus. I’m pretty positive that the ratio of students who are hardcore drug users and drinkers is greatly outnumbered by the rest of us.
So before I step off my soapbox, I want you to know that this paper doesn’t really represent the students here, it represents what you and your reporters feel like writing about. There’s more to this campus then the Theatre Department and athletics, take the time and you’ll see a lot of good is happening here in spite of our “drug culture” and “meat-eating Greeks.”
Liz Jason
Junior, Business Admin
Sister of Kappa Iota
Gorham RA
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To the Editor:
I would like to express my extreme disappointment in the article published in last week’s Free Press titled “Greeks Celebrate with Roasted Meat.” What were they celebrating? No one knows.
No one knows because there wasn’t an article written, only a couple of lame pictures of the Aramark chefs, and a brother of Phi Kappa Sigma shot from his “astonishing white teeth” down.
The seven Greek organizations gathered together last Friday evening for more than some BBQ chicken and a few hamburgers. Together, we are working to bring several events to the Gorham campus for the upcoming academic year. At the meeting, a representative from each chapter spoke on what kinds of events we’d like to see planned. Over the summer a Greek-run committee will be planning the first of six total events, the first to be held in early September.
I’ve been a sister of Kappa Iota for over four years and I know the MTV “Sorority Life” stereotypes that are often associated with the members of the Greek community. The meeting last Friday was an attempt to over come the biasness [sic] and finally be seen for the hardworking, motivated people we are.
Each and every member of the Greek community is involved in numerous hours of community service, rather [sic] it be working at the Preble Street Soup Kitchen serving meals to the homeless, collecting donations and participating in various charitable walks, or working with mentally challenged teens at Portland’s Project for Supported Living STRIVE program.
This is just the beginning of all we do. In addition, we go to classes, work, meetings, and internships. There are even members of Kappa Delta Phi serving as military police in Kuwait as I write this.
We aren’t looking for a pat on the back here because we do all of these things because we love it, not because we have to. If the goal of The Free Press is to be unslanted [sic] and unbiased maybe they should think twice about the message they are sending when they publish articles such as that one.
Kim Ames
Kappa Iota
Media Studies- Senior
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To the Editor:
This will be a sort of general reply, since I don’t wish to single any particular person out above others.
For starters, a correction, and a plea for journalistic accuracy: last time I checked, there was no charge of “civil disobedience” in the Maine Statutes. If The Free Press is going to report that certain individuals were arrested for an act of civil disobedience, and charged with some particular crime, that’s all well and good. But to report that some person was “charged” with civil disobedience is thoroughly incorrect. Avoiding the details of the actual crime sure makes things more interesting, but I’d rather see the factual stories dry and accurate, instead of entertaining but false.
To continue, I’d like to address the subject of ignorance and information, and the peace protests. How many of these protesters, do you think, have any substantial knowledge of who the players in this conflict are, what their histories are like, and how they are related?
How many know that Saddam’s Ba’ath Socialist Party was formed when the Nazis were in the Middle East, essentially as an Arabic-language version of the Nazi party? When I say, “Saddam is Hitler,” I’m not exaggerating: the two share the same political goals and methods.
How many know that France, Germany, and Russia all had massive trade contracts with Saddam, and have every reason to fight to keep that maniac in power? How many know that some of the most vocal anti-war politicians in Europe have personal investments in Saddam’s regime?
How many know that Chirac was a big player in the negotiations to sell a French nuclear reactor to Saddam? A reactor that would have been supplying Saddam with weapons-grade nuclear material for decades, had it not been destroyed in a daring raid by Israel, days before it was slated to go online. France itself, in defiance of international standards of conduct, has detonated nuclear weapons in tests, long after civilized countries agreed to cease all nuclear testing.
How many know that Germany, France, and Russia supplied Saddam’s regime with military hardware, and both chemical and biological weapons, even during the embargo? How many know the death count that the weapons supplied by these “peace-loving nations” meted-out upon innocent people?
How many know that large numbers of America’s most prominent anti-war celebrity activists, routinely speak out in support of Fidel Castro’s brutal suppression of dissent, yet scream from the rooftops of “blacklists” and “McCarthyism” whenever some private citizen says that he will no longer pay to see their movies?
How many know that Saddam has the infamous distinction of having killed more Arabs and Muslims than any other person in history? Saddam killed more Arabs and Muslims than the original Crusades, yet many have the audacity to liken Bush to those Crusaders.
How many know that Saddam regime had another infamous distinction: the only government to officially employ men in the position of “rapist,” and use them to torture women who opposed Saddam, or even ones who did not, but whose male relatives or friends did?
How many know that Saddam used to order children’s’ eyes slashed out, if their parents opposed him?
How many of you didn’t know any of these things? How many of you have been played like pawns on a chessboard, by people who have every desire to keep a murderous tyrant in power?
More importantly, though, is how many of you will keep right on protesting, with no real care for the suffering of the Iraqi people? How many of you will, instead, choose to research a topic more, before blindly following the social elites, because it is popular? Peer pressure is alive and well, and few people our age seem willing to defy it, even when the cause is so obviously just.
Joe Brown
Criminology senior