Letters

Monday, April 22, 1996Choking the chicken

Editor:

The Undergraduate Students Association Council wants to raise
students’ fees by 75 cents in order to fund student groups who say
they’ll lobby the university for ­ get this ­ lower reg
fees ("Undergraduate council lobbies to raise reg fees," April 10).
I guess that’s OK, assuming they save us more than 75 cents, but
I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

The Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) and most
of the student advocacy groups we all know and love do just about
the same thing: They take money from the university (a nice chunk
of the 18 bucks students fork over to student government every
quarter) and use it to make even more demands of the university
­ remember the affirmative action protests? From what I
understand, this type of log-rolling is what the external vice
president’s office is all about.

Now, USAC and every student group that gets students’ money are
extensions of the university. So I’m wondering, if all student
government does is lobby itself, would the technical term for what
goes on in Kerckhoff Hall be "bureaucratic masturbation"? Is it all
just a big jerkoff in Kerckhoff? I think so.

Cosmo Wenman

Fourth-year

Economics

Classist argument

Editor:

Associate Dean Robin Fisher writes that the United Auto Workers
(UAW) has no place in academia. What a classist argument. The UAW
has raised the standard of living of millions of Americans.
Chancellor Young has accepted billions of dollars from corporate
donors. Corporations have degraded the American standard of living
through downsizing.

I ask you: Who deserves more of a place in academia ­
corporations or auto workers?

Harold Baum

Graduate student

Anthropology

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *