History Department has
tenured women
To the editor:
While I don’t for a moment disagree with Mia Eisner-Grynberg that there ought to be more women with tenure on the faculty, I would like to correct a misapprehension in her essay [“Make women’s studies a priority on campus,” Feb. 21]. She cites a report that the History Department “has never tenured a woman.” In fact, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, an historian of Mexico, was promoted to tenure in the History Department 20 years ago, though she subsequently moved elsewhere; the late and very much lamented Nancy Grant was promoted to tenure in African-American history 10 years later. More recently, of course, Linda Nicholson was appointed with tenure in the History Department when she joined WU as Stiritz Professor.
Derek Hirst
Chair of the History Department
Student Life should have
covered Gephardt
To the editor:
As a member of the Washington University student body, I was highly disappointed to read Friday’s edition of Student Life and not find a news article on Dick Gephardt’s declaration of candidacy for the presidency. Given that he is the representative for most Washington University students, Student Life’s failure to cover his campaign kickoff was a poor decision. A campus newspaper ought to aim to educate its readership about local and national events, and Gephardt’s candidacy statement fits both descriptions. I’m sure other universities’ newspapers would have covered a similar announcement by a local Congressman. In the future, please consider the needs of WU students, and cover other important events that would be deemed of interest to us.
Deborah Tobolowsky
Arts and Sciences
Class of 2004
System could reduce
van roll-overs
To the editor:
This e-mail is in response to Laura Shapiro’s article “University Uses Vans Despite Rollover Risks”. My name is Jim David, I am the Program Director for a new mechanical technology called Stability Management Systems. Our innovation is an inexpensive, easy to install counter spring that controls the rebound energy in vehicle suspensions. We recently took a finished product to market.
I also would like to invite you to visit our Web site www.stability-ms.com/home.html. The site recently went online for public viewing.
If any of this is of interest to you or your colleges, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. We firmly believe that our technology will help in accident avoidance, reduce driver fatigue and in turn save lives.
Jim David
Program Director of Stability Management Systems
New Greek housing rules will
benefit selection process
To the editor:
I would like to make a correction to the editorial “New housing rules are unfair to fraternity pledges” [Feb. 18] and a clarification to the earlier article by Mary Bruce.
The editorial states that “transfer and other upperclassmen could be assigned to the unoccupied room [in a fraternity house].” This is incorrect. The legal agreement that the University has with each fraternity house corporation states that “The standard occupancy of the House will be X beds (different for each house). The University expects full occupancy. In consultation with the House Corporation, the University may set (and from time to time reset) a maximum allowable vacancy rate. For any additional vacancy, the House Corporation will have the option to pay the housing cost and leave the [empty] bed vacant, or select a student approved by the University who is not an Active Member to fill the vacancy.” The allowable vacancy rate is currently 10 percent. So, as you see, the University will not place non-members in the house, unless the fraternity requests this. Any “exodus” that you reference from ResLife to fraternity houses over the summer, has nothing to do with a fraternity fearing non-members being placed in the house for the coming year.
From the article, paragraph four says that “this will be the first year that these regulations have been enforced” referring to the aforementioned required number of contracts to be submitted for fraternity members to participate in the ResLife process. This is actually the first year there has been such a “regulation” and the regulation is related to the problem with current students not being assigned to a residential life space through the “round process” due to the excessive number of students who do get housing assignment and then later cancel that assignment. About one third of those assigned student who later cancel were fraternity members. What has been enforced for the past three years is the financial penalty for being below the 90 percent occupancy requirement-which is unrelated to any of the stipulations pertaining to the room selection process. There are a number of efforts, including the above, that Residential Life has worked very hard on, which will hopefully reduce the number of assigned student cancelations as well as decrease the number of unassigned students
Karin Horstman Johnes
Director for Greek Life
Service can become a
deep part of oneself
To the editor:
Besides loving Yoni Cohen’s name, I loved his column “Lifeless Students” (Feb. 25). What I want to applaud and encourage is his cry to cover student activism.
There are about 12,000 students at this university, and most of us are doing volunteer work that really does make a difference. We volunteer on campus, in St. Louis, and across the country. Covering student activism would serve two purposes. First, it would provide good role models. When I hear of a friend getting up at 9 a.m. every Saturday morning to go to the U City Nursing Home (this does happen), this sets an example and inspires me to either do the same or do something. Second, covering student activism would match our various volunteer groups to those students looking for the program with their name on it. And believe me, volunteer groups can always use more enthusiastic and sincere volunteers.
This leads me to one more important point. Volunteering is not always easy and fun… at first. Many of us sign up, go to the first meeting or event, then drift away never to be heard from again. There are so many programs on this campus that could use your help, your creativity, your energy. When it isn’t smooth sailing at first, wait it out, help the program, and soon service will become a part of your life. When you stop thinking about it as service and simply as something you must do or you wouldn’t be you, then you’ve discovered a deeper part of yourself.
Ana Cespedes
Business, Arts and Sciences
Class of 2003