University should prioritize needs of current students

I have noticed a trend with the construction on campus in that the projects seem to take an awful long time to complete. As a freshman this did not bother me as it does now — maybe I was blind to the fact that the money we pay as students goes to these projects.

We are in quite the economic downturn and many people, companies and universities are under a lot of staffing and financial straits. This is why I am so baffled that we, as a university, continue to pay for these projects to go unfinished for so long. Wouldn’t the University want to get the work done in the least amount of time to minimize cost and labor pay? I have observed the construction on the stairs beside Williams Halls and progress is slow and completion does not seem urgent. Why are these projects taking so long to complete? Why does the University allow this to continue to be aesthetically and financially burdening?

The administration at N.C. State seems to have fallen in love with the new Talley Student Center in order to upgrade the campus like Beyoncé, perhaps to attract future students. They seem to have forgotten about today’s students. Could we be allocating money from future projects to the completion of the smaller current projects to improve the look of our campus? While future students will have the new Talley Airport Terminal, today’s students are blessed with unfinished projects, detours and fenced-off stairs and walkways.

Ian Dudleyjunior, fisheries and wildlife science

White takes the wrong stance on death penalty

There are two points I want to make about this ridiculous column.

First, White proposes a hypothetical situation that reverts back to barbaric Abrahamic “justice” used by religious tribes of killing a criminal along with a member or members of his/her family. How can anyone be willing to allow an innocent person to be punished for another’s crime? What if the defendent had no parents? What if he/she only had a child? Kill the child? It is unethical to take the life of an innocent person without justified reason.

Secondly, before one can consider the ethics of capital punishment, one must first look at the unfair representation of defendants. Do you not know over 97 percent of death row inmates had public defenders? And you can read time and again that public defenders don’t have the money to defend them in murder trials, some offices even asking judges to remit the death penalty because of lack of money to defend properly.

If you have money for a lawyer, you can get off the death penalty, simple as that. Once you fix the fairness of defense aspect of the process, you can then determine whether or not the death penalty should be implemented. You cannot use force and fear to promote peace.

Ryan Streetersenior, business management