Students need better parking
Every letter regarding parking that I have read these past few days has left me with a sour taste. Oddly, the letter that was supposed to encourage an end to it all turned out to be the one that annoyed me the most. Will Morrison sent in a letter in Wednesday’s edition in which he sounded like everybody’s least favorite ancient relative, complaining that people were complaining too much.
So, Mr. Morrison, now we know your life story. You used to live on campus, but now you commute. You walk a mile to class perfectly content. Your biggest complaints are that sometimes you run a little late, sometimes you are tired, and sometimes you get hot and sweaty on the long walk to class. But you never complain. Good for you. We are all very proud of you.
Now, with all due respect, Will, you fail to realize that not everyone has it as good as you. The main problem for me, and countless others, is not the physical stress (getting tired; getting hot; sweating a lot; getting cold) caused by the parking situation. Rather, it is the simple fact that many of us have strict daily schedules to abide by. You obviously sit on your butt outside of school and can afford the time needed to get to school early and walk great distances without a care. I, like thousands of others at this university, don’t fall into this lucky category.
I lead a busy, productive life outside of my scholastic life. I do not have the time to drive around for a half hour to find a parking space, unlike you with your empty schedule. Nor do I enjoy allocating thirty to forty-five minutes of each day for the endless walk to my truck and the seemingly eternal line of stop-and-go-a-foot traffic. I simply do not have the time. Like they say, I have places to go, things to see and people to do. But seriously Will, lighten up a little. You need to realize that many people have legitimate reasons to be fed up with the parking situation (Which, by the way, IS royally screwed and plagued with ineptitude). Let these people speak their mind without Will Morrison, 5th year senior, chastising them.
Brad Steimel
Junior
Political Science
LSU heading to classes of 1,000
I would like to know who thinks that this new tenure program is a good idea.
Last Thursday, I attended a class with a teacher who has been here since 1988. However, she is not a doctor. She proceeded to inform our class that even though she has reached tenure status because she has been here so long, she would be fired at the end of the year.
I have not paid much attention to this tenure program thus far because I did not think that it would affect me. Also, I don’t really know any of these professors personally, so I haven’t really felt sorry for any of them until now. However, the thing that made me even angrier was what she told us about the changes in classes. Math classes will be just like your biology classes next fall, with over 350 students in them. They want the upper classmen to have small intimate classes with their tenure professors while the freshmen and sophomores add another large class onto their schedule. I think that the whole thing is ridiculous.
Most of all, I wonder who is looking out for the students in all this? Do they really think that we care whether our professors are doctors or not? All I know is that someone needs to do something about this HUGE problem before we wind up in classes of 1,000.
Kendyl Wright
Sophomore
Mass Communication
Current football ticket system flawed
I hate to be negative, especially right after we win our first national title in 45 years and have a great ceremony marked with true pride. However, there is one issue that sticks out in my mind that needs to be mentioned. It is the ticket lottery used to distribute tickets to LSU students. I feel there are fairer ways of distributing tickets.
The perfect scenario involves the old fashioned way of earning your ticket. In the past, the student faithful would earn their tickets by camping out at the ticket office and braving the elements to reap the benefits of seeing our team up close and personal as they bully around any given foe. Yet that is no longer the case.
If grades and class attendance are the only hindrance to this way of doing things, that should not be an issue. I believe that if someone was going to be unprepared for class it would happen regardless of if they were sleeping out at the ticket office- odds are they would not study anyhow.
If rowdiness is the concern, why not have an LSUPD officer keep an eye on things? This seems rational because this truly gives tickets to the students who deserve them. It prevents unfairness that does exist in a lottery system.
There are many examples of the unfairness this system creates. One in particular comes to mind. On the way to one of my exams, a student I had never met before and I struck up a conversation. He told me he didn’t attend any of the games, pulled against our team most of the time, and only came here because it was free. He then stated “But, if I can get a ticket to the national title game, I’ll go to that.” How can it be a just system when this student has an equal shot as, say, a fifth year senior who supported LSU football every year, including the 3-8 season witnessed their freshman year?
I think it would be fine if the students were alloted tickets on a first come, first serve basis, purchased them, and then could not pick them up until they arrive at the venue. This would prevent scalping.
If there is no possible way to allow us to earn them manually, then the next best solution involves a weighted lottery. For example, when someone chooses to enter the lottery, use a priority point system based on how many years they have been a student ticket holder, away game tickets purchased, and bowl tickets purchased. I would most likely be snubbed in this case as I am only a sophomore, but it is the most fair way to involve a lottery.
The bottom line is that the most faithful financial supporters of LSU Athletics in the future will be the students who care the most about the games now, not those who enter the lottery “just to see if I can win.”
James Schneider
Sophomore
Business Administration
BCS system a binding contract
I would like to respond to Philip Andra’s January 23rd letter regarding the dispute over the national championship title.
You can talk all you want (and correctly at that) about the strength of LSU’s schedule over USC’s, or the difficulty of our respective bowl games, or of all the numbers and statistics that give us an edge over the Trojans.
What it simply boils down to is the fact that the BCS is a contract; a contract USC signed and agreed to honor when the system was instituted.
By signing on to the BCS, USC and every other BCS school agreed to allow computers to pick two potential champions, and that that the national champion would be the one who came out on top in the BCS national championship game. The computers picked LSU and OU, and LSU won, thus receiving the national champion title. End of debate.
Southern Cal can huff and puff about being the “people’s champion”, but their obligation to the BCS should not be tossed out the window in their fury over not coming to New Orleans on the 4th.
Adam Seip
Freshman
International Studies
Book costs entirely too high
Book companies are robbing us blind. I know that I am not the only student at LSU that is upset about the price of textbooks. We are forced to pay over 300 dollars a semester for textbooks that we usually can’t even sell back. The textbook companies are constantly coming out with newer editions of the books that are unnoticeably different then the last version. Bookstores should buy backour older versions of textbooks because most teachers do not mind using an older version of a book.
Another solution may be that teachers could post a list of the books students need to buy before classes begin so that the students can shop around at bookstores or online to find the cheapest version of the book.
Amazon.com and Half.com are excellent locations to buy books. The only problem is that by the time we know which book we need to buy we have to have the book by the next class so there is no time to wait for the books to be shipped.
I hope that teachers and bookstores take notice of this and change their policies in order to help the students that are trying to pay for tuition, rent, bills, and books all at the same time.
Margaret Foley
Sophomore
Psychology