LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: UA is committed, powerful

To the Editor: This Undergraduate Assembly, however, wields a considerable amount of power based upon the commitment of its members to improving student life, as well as our dedication to advocating student concerns to the administration. Our power can best be summarized in the goals the UA has committed to achieving this year. These range from long-term involvement in the important administrative restructuring and 21st century academic and strategic planning that will characterize the overall quality of the Penn undergraduate experience well into the next decade. We recognize also that there are numerous smaller improvements in safety, dining and other aspects of student life that the UA is taking action on now. These are projects that no other student organization on campus dedicates itself to completing. Our power is also based upon overcoming "undergraduate apathy" and empowering students. Students here are not apathetic by any means. We are each deeply involved in activities that interest us, whether they be the performing arts, athletics, Greek life or academics. As the elected student government, the Undergraduate Assembly must centralize the interests of these separate groups into a united voice. In the past, the UA has had a poor record of relating to other student groups. But this year we have made such relationships a priority by assigning UA members as liaisons to other groups, and actively involving interested groups and students in our projects. Taff's comments that the UA needs to better relate with the student body are quite accurate. We do not believe that it is enough to just wait for students to come to our always open meetings (9 p.m. Sundays at Chats), join any of our committees (Facilities, Academics, Student Life and Safety), check out our homepage (http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~ua), send e-mail to the UA (ua@dolphin) or read the UA newsgroup (upenn.undergraduate-assembly). Instead, we plan to pursue an active outreach effort to inform students of UA activities, important projects coming down from the administration and get feedback and concerns. Look for us on the Walk and at your residence hall meetings, and please fill out our surveys. Our cooperation with other student groups, communication with the student body and, most important, successful advocacy with the administration will hopefully dispel the conception of the UA as the impotent, indolent and insincere bureaucracy portrayed by Taff and others. I know that the high quality, hard working and good-natured membership of this year's UA will ensure it. Tal Golomb College '98 Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson Friendship defies race To the Editor: It seems that many of the letters the DP receives are about the negative, or presumably negative, side of the University. The examples that come to mind first are those bad-mouthing "segregation" or "separatism" at the University. I just wanted to let your readers know that not all is bad here at Penn on the racial level, bad as it may seem at times. True story: Six guys come from a prestigious high school that will remain unnamed. (If you really want to know, you could ask any one of these guys or just look at all of the gear that Chico Whitehead, Steve Jessup and I wear. But that is not important.) This group includes two African Americans, a guy of Taiwanese background, another of Indian background, a Jew and a Caucasian. I can truly say I was pretty good friends with each of these students, yet I can admit that the majority of my time was spent with the African American. As you may have or may not have predicted, the two African Americans moved into W.E.B. DuBois College House and the other four moved into the Quadrangle. This is where it gets strange. I still see all of these guys. I know, I know, this may be hard to believe, but just because we live on different sides of campus, and the racial make up of our dorms is different, it is possible for friendships to last. It may seem that the black students here do their thing and that the rest of the University does its thing. Yet we six still stay in pretty constant contact with each other and hang out together sometimes. I'm not going to lie and say I have gone to a single frat party with them or that they have come to any of the parties that I go to, but all of that is not necessary to keep a friendship going. I realize this situation is not common for many people here, yet I also know it is not an isolated one, either. These are just a few words of encouragement to us all to realize that things may not be perfect here at Penn, but all is not that bad. Chaz Howard College '00 The meaning of 'merit' To the Editor: Comments by History Professor Alan Kors in response to University President Judith Rodin's Minority permanence plan ("Faculty divided over Rodin's minority plan," DP, 9/19/96) are quite disappointing, particularly coming from a History Professor. Kors declares that we will abandon "merit" if we consider certain "group identities" as valid criteria for choosing faculty members. The refutations of Kors's well-worn excuses for not attending to the racial composition of the University community are well documented, including by Penn's own Ed Herman, Emeritus Finance Professor. I would like to add an illustration that I have not seen much in this debate. The presumption that an objective measure of "merit" exists, and is waiting and failing to be applied, is, of course, absurd. Almost everyone already agrees on this point. As far as I am aware, no one ever questions the legitimacy of employing faculty or admitting students in a broad mix of academic disciplines. It may well be that prevailing trends in competition, funding, etc. causes applicants in Math, say, to present typically higher on-paper qualifications than applicants in other fields. This would not lead to indefinite growth in the Math Department. The University would not be bent on making a single list, ranking all applicants by "merit" and taking the people off the top without regard to their academic "group identities." Moreover, there would be no outcry to the effect that the University "discriminates against" Math students because they are not employed or admitted in disproportionate numbers. Any such suggestions would be appropriately dismissed as nonsensical. It's only a small step to realizing that other "group" criteria may be important. One may want to ensure that a community does not become skewed in composition, or that it does not remain so because one-sided forces have been in operation for many years, as is in fact the case. Alex Welte Physics Graduate Student