Watson should be proud of Triton Taxi
Editor:
I think it is sad that the UCSD administration does not want to align itself with a program such as Triton Taxi (“Watson opposes efforts to put Triton Taxi waiver online,” May 13). Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Joseph W. Watson is quoted as saying “[Triton Taxi] is not a safety program. It is a program that encourages and facilitates students getting into circumstances in which they are not safe.” Watson sounds like those people who claim distributing condoms in schools encourages sex. Kids aren’t having sex because condoms are distributed at school, condoms are distributed at school because kids are having sex. Similarly, UCSD students do not choose to drink because they know Triton Taxi can bail them out. News flash for Watson: Triton Taxi exists because college kids drink, and it is better to have a viable option for getting home, because without it, people do stupid things like get behind the wheel. More education is not going to help me learn how to be more “safe and secure.” We all know the dangers of alcohol. Triton Taxi does not just help those who are being unsafe. Even if you are drinking responsibly, you still need a sober ride home. If your designated driver has ended up having a drink or your friend cannot come to pick you up, Triton Taxi is there. I think it is one of the best safety services offered. The UCSD administration should support this program and keep it running. They should be proud to support a program that provides safe alternatives for students.
— Jessica Bagley
Revelle College junior
Gender inequality chosen by students
Editor:
I am writing in regards to the article “Technical fields attract less female students” (May 13). As a simple statement of observed statistical fact, I took no issue with this report. As I read, however, I was perturbed by the ostensible insinuation that this disparity couldn’t possibly be because some girls just happen to like nontechnical fields better.
As a soon-to-be human development graduate (listed as the worst offender in luring females toward the humanities), I would just like to take a moment to express my own views on the subject. Despite popular sociological theory, my choice of major had little to do with a lack of scientific or mathematical encouragement dating back to my days in pigtails. On the contrary, I was awesome in these fields, if I do say so myself. I got a 5 on both the AP Chemistry and AP Calculus tests. I was named Top Olympiad of the American Chemical Society in high school, and received a Student of the Year plaque for physics. I could go on, but I’m embarrassing myself, and I think you get the picture.
The reason I chose not to enter an engineering program when I came to college was not due to lifelong discouragement or ingrained notions of what it means to be a woman; the reason I chose not to be an engineer was because I spent the summer after my senior year working at an engineering firm, and it was boring as all hell. Sitting at a computer in my little gray cubicle surrounded by other little gray computer-filled cubicles made me want to poke my eyes out with my shiny new protractor.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure engineering can be interesting in its own way, and if that’s what turns you on, hey, go for it. I just think it is a mistake to assume that all female Human Development Program majors would really rather be engineers, if this were a perfect world. I am HDP because I like HDP. I think if we’re going to make a concerted effort to up the number of female engineers in an attempt to solve this gender disparity crisis, as the article suggested, we should strive to up the number of male HDP majors as well. And, for the record, we girls in human development do take the occasional science class, as shocking as that may seem. A third of the HDP curriculum is biology-based, ranging from genetics to neuroscience. I may not be blazing a revolutioary trail into th male-dominated workplace, but neither am I sitting at home knitting booties and making pot roast for the menfolk. I am just a normal student, taking classes that interest me personally.
I did not write with the intent to offend any engineers or feminists or sociologists, or to brag about my nerdy high-school self. Nor did I intend to indicate that gender disparity in technical fields is not a genuine phenomenon. I simply wanted to state that human development is just as legitimate and fulfilling a major as anything else, for members of either gender.
— Jennifer Todd
John Muir College senior
Fond memories of Children’s Pool seals
Editor:
When I was a kid, one of my favorite places my mother would take me was to see the seals in La Jolla’s Children’s Pool (“Sealing their fates,” May 10). It was a unique opportunity to see these creatures close up. Not once did I wish I could go swimming there, as there are plenty of other beaches all over the county. Besides, that area was built for San Diego’s 1931 population, and it would be unbearably crowded if it were reverted to human use today.
So, my point remains, just because kids are not swimming there does not mean they are not benefiting from it. Seeing the seals in the Children’s Pool has been an integral part of growing up in San Diego and should remain as such.
— Sean Perry
University Centers
Governor’s cuts to UC not the answer
Editor:
This summer, a great debate is before us in Sacramento, a debate with serious implications for you as college students: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed more than $650 million in cuts to California’s public colleges and universities, tuition hikes of greater than 30 percent for undergraduate students and 50 percent for graduate students over the next three years, a 44 percent hike in fees for community college students, cuts to the Cal Grant program, and an $11.6 million reduction in UC research funding.
The Schwarzenegger administration has also proposed to ask the UC and CSU systems to find “non-state resources” to fund most of its outreach efforts, which help disadvantaged students compete for college — after slashing them by 50 percent earlier this year.
While there are many questions to be answered about how to solve the state’s truly dire fiscal problems, I believe the choices before us are larger than where to make cuts or raise revenues. The real question is whether the leaders of this state will keep the commitment that our parents and grandparents made to invest in the next generation, or whether our elected leaders will shirk that commitment, to the detriment of your education and, I believe, to the future of our state.
As treasurer, my first priority is to protect our economy today, and to build our economy for tomorrow. I believe the governor’s budget proposals for our public colleges and universities take our state in the wrong direction — undermining our state’s historic commitment to a first-class higher educational system that provides opportunity to all Californians and that will be our ticket to economic progress in the decades ahead. What is truly troubling is that the governor has proposed slashing state support for higher education and hiking fees on students, while refusing to consider closing one corporate tax loophole or restoring the state’s income tax rates on the wealthiest Californians to where they were under Republican Governors Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson.
In January of this year, I had the chance to tour some of our state’s great UC, CSU and community college campuses. While I have always believed that education is an important investment in our state’s economic strength, I came away from this tour more convinced than ever of the importance of these great institutions, not only for the benefit they provide our economy, but also for the opportunity and promise they offer the next generation of Californians. In my opinion, we should be debating how we can invest more, not less, in our students and in these institutions, and in the future of our state.
On my college tour, I met many students who told me that their dreams of attending our state’s four-year universities simply would not be possible without the assistance, support and guidance they received from the CSU and UC outreach programs the governor proposed in January to eliminate. At San Diego City College, I met with four students in the Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement outreach program. None of their parents had gone to college, and all of the students in this program were working at jobs just to make ends meet. Because of the M.E.S.A. program, Izzy Beth Rodriguez, Barry Cordero, Michelle Scott and Jovanni Sarria are poised to go on to our great university system, to study biology, engineering and biomedical science, and to make their contribution to California’s future.
Also in January, I visited McClymonds High School in Oakland, Calif., a school where more students drop out than graduate. There I met Antoine Davis, a truly inspiring young man who has defied the odds against him. Antoine not only will graduate this spring, but will do so as student body president, editor of the school paper, and with a 3.7 grade point average. Antoine says college outreach programs helped him to prepare for and apply to colleges. This fall, he will enroll in his first-choice school — UC Berkeley.
We must ensure that our world-renowned public college and university system can continue to provide the opportunity for students like Izzy Beth, Barry, Michelle, Jovanni and Antoine — and tens of thousands more just like them across our state — to fulfill their dreams of attending college, where they can acquire the knowledge and skills they will need to excel in, and contribute to a burgeoning 21st century economy.
I plan to continue fighting to protect California’s higher education system and to maintain its legacy as an educational system that is worthy of your future. I urge you to make your voices heard too, so that together, we can steer this debate in the right direction. E-mail or call the governor and your legislators, and let them know that this fight is about more than dollars and cents — it is about your education and about the future of this great state.
— Phil Angelides
Treasurer, State of Calfornia
