Letters to the Editor

Statistics, linguistics courses essential

For the past decade, every time I have attended a faculty meeting where a promotion case was discussed, I have had to endure talk by my colleagues about class ratings and professor ratings where no potentially intervening variables (such as class size and heterogeneity of class population) were ever statistically controlled for.

It was as if professors’ fates at this university were decided by reading the entrails of freshly slaughtered sheep.

Every time I have wanted to give each colleague a free copy of John Allen Paulos’s book Innumeracy.

So it was with great pleasure that I read Tristan Reed’s column “Math GEs don’t add up” in the Daily Bruin (Oct. 24).

If even some students see that they’re being intellectually infantilized at UCLA, there might yet be hope for this university.

By all means, have every student take statistics.

And, while you’re at it, have all students take at least one linguistics course while they are here and increase the language requirement too.

The degree of linguistic illiteracy on campus (and even in language departments) is at least as much a problem among both students and professors as is quantitative illiteracy.

Robert S. Kirsner

Professor of Dutch and Afrikaans,

Department of Germanic Languages

Campus safety advocacy not new

In “Recent campus crimes raises safety concerns” (News, Oct. 26), William Weiss gives credit to current Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) Internal Vice President (IVP) for the creation of the Campus Safety Alliance (CSA).

Although I am excited to hear that the current IVP is committed to campus safety, I want to clarify that the advocacy efforts of the CSA are not new.

In fact, last year’s USAC institutionalized the CSA as a standing committee in the USAC bylaws.

The Campus Safety Alliance was established by former USAC Internal Vice President, Gregory Cendana, former USAC Student Welfare Commissioner, Tamaron Jang, and myself.

It took months of meetings with administrators and student organizations to develop a clear purpose and structure for the safety alliance.

Our council established the CSA in response to numerous safety issues the university has and still continues to face.

It is true that one of the events that served as a catalyst for the CSA was the Taser incident that happened in Powell library last November.

However, the UCLA community has also experienced other safety concerns, including hates crimes, sexual assault, and identity and property theft.

Campus safety should continue to be a priority for the internal vice president, USAC and the administration, both on our campus and within the University of California system.

With the CSA, advocacy efforts will be centralized and stronger.

As with any substantial effort USAC undertakes, the work of the CSA extends beyond one year and one council.

I am looking forward to reading about what great things the alliance will do in the coming year.

Carlos Saucedo

UCLA alumnus, Class of 2007

2006-2007 USAC General Representative

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