Scholarship was misidentified
To the editor:
I’d like to make a correction to the front page article for the Friday, Feb. 21st issue, “WU sends brief to Supreme Court.” It says that I am an “Urban Scholar” at Washington University. There is no such scholarship program. The program I am a part of is the John B. Ervin Scholars Program, which gets its namesake from the nationally recognized scholar who was the first African American dean at Washington University. This highly selective program celebrated its 15th anniversary in the fall, and has attracted some of the best and brightest students from all over the country.
Asha Haji
Engineering
Class of 2005
Mistake was not acceptable
To the editor:
As a Washington University alum, I enjoy keeping up with campus news.
While the news of the amicus curiae that WU submitted to the Supreme Court was great news, the support to affirmative action was typically quoting a “Urban Scholar” as you printed. The name of the scholarship is the John B. Ervin scholarship.
This type of typographical error is inexcusable. Perhaps you need to educate yourself and the rest of the WU community about the legacy of John B. Ervin.
I hope there will be a note in the next edition to correct this blatant error. Perhaps, someone could take my suggestion and write an article about John B. Ervin and other racial minorities that have contributed and are contributing to Washington Universities great heritage.
Geordana M. Evans
Arts and Sciences
Class of 2000
“Box guy” column was a waste
To the editor:
“Box guy” or “Mark” as he is also called, recently was the subject of an op-ed that caused me to wonder: is the Stud Life staff desperately lacking subject matter? Admittedly, it’s easier to fill space with paragraphs of hyperbole and sarcasm than with insightful or intelligent ideas. However, choosing to pick out an individual with whom one has no acquaintance and to compare him to a “stranger with candy who lets school children approach his beat up van” is not a good way to waste space. Perhaps the Stud Life staff should feel less obliged to fill space with text-an advertisement would have undoubtedly been less condescending and uninformative.
Nathan Gutt
Arts and Sciences
Class of 2005
Finding something to do in Iraq
To the editor:
Walking past that giant green monstrosity that is supposed to make us forget that our school doesn’t have a main library, I saw an interesting posting. It read: “No Apathy. No War.”
Apparently, Rose Kowalski also saw this sign. Her column “Students have options other than war” is righteous in inspiration, however lacking in information.
Kowalski claims President Bush is “war-mongering” and values oil over peace. The only war under the Bush administration was in Afghanistan. Surely Kowalski wasn’t against that war, or somehow under the impression that Bush was valuing premium cave real estate over peace. Also, just because we may be going to war with Iraq, does not mean that we are going to set up a giant free-standing fiberglass Amoco sign and call it a day. Bush has constantly stated that if it comes to war, nation-building will follow. If war is forced upon us, it will be a multinational coalition bringing down Saddam Hussein and a multinational coalition putting the country back together again.
Kowalski then speaks about a rally leader who demanded that Boeing let them perform “inspection for weapons of mass destructions.” I can appreciate some level of humor in the attempt, but it lacks any point. The United States can produce weapons of mass destruction (although it has entered in several non-proliferation treaties on its own accord). Iraq, on the other hand, received United Nations sanctions for its invasion of Kuwait, among other things. Despite those sanctions, Iraq has continued doing what it’s always done: build weapons to bully its neighbors and, in time, the world. In fact, Iraq has been found in material breach of 17 U.N. resolutions. It is because Iraq is in complete disregard of the U.N. and poses as such a potentially damaging threat that Bush wants to forcefully disarm Iraq if necessary.
Being patriotic and supporting our President in this challenging time isn’t apathetic. Quite the contrary, succumbing to what has become chic among the left, opposing war in Iraq, is far more apathetic. Don’t be lazy, read the facts. What’s really undermining the U.N.? Is it France’s craving for a global center stage by refuting the U.S.? Is it Russia’s greed to continue arms and oil deals with Iraq in a U.S.-free market? Is it China trying to establish itself as a world power by providing a counter-weight to the U.S.? The U.N. is meant to be an international body preserving international peace. These nations have ulterior motives which inherently undermine the principles of the U.N. and prevent peace from being realized. Do students have options other than war? Definitely. Study. Play IM sports. Join a club. Be grateful you are not being gassed by a truly self-appointed leader.
Diego Chojkier
Arts and Sciences
Class of 2005
Student Life should address more national issues
To the editor:
Though the Assembly Series usually contributes valuable insight to the Washington University Community, the speech given by Judith Miller given on Wednesday served no purpose. Granted, she was great at repeating everything George Bush has said in the past two years (besides the one concession that we shouldn’t go it alone), but she offered no information that would convince me that she was a “renowned expert” on the Middle East. Nor did she live up to the title of her speech “A view from the Middle East.” Rather, she simply talked about how much the world has changed since 9/11 and how vulnerable all of us were. These are things I already know, yet somehow her saying these things coupled with her “expertise” impelled people to stand up and ask her for advice as if she was going to solve all the problems of the world. If we want to bring journalists to speak, they should speak about journalism and not act as a front for the dismal one-liners of the mainstream media. Journalists could talk about their expereriences abroad, yet Judith only spent about three minutes on this issue. Maybe a better title of her speech would have been “A view from the couch of an American watching CNN.”
I think that Student Life should be aware of the narrow focus of the mainstream media and people like Judith Miller. Though events on campus are important, most people don’t care about how people feel about housing rules or research on cats. I’m aware of several articles that have been turned down because they were not connected to the Wash U community, but I think maybe some good newswriting and op-eds focusing on foreign policy, instead of how we should have a D-I sport or your weekly moral reminder, could educate students far better than the mainstream media.
Jeff Holman
Arts and Sciences
Class of 2005