LETTERS: 'Mission' article lacked balance

To the Editor: Aside from having no immediate, newsworthy relevance to any goings-on about campus, this piece is insultingly pro-administration, offering only token objection to the University's slash-and-burn corporate management style. A cynic would think that the timing of this piece is somehow related to the Penn community's growing disgust with the administration's recent exploits, like the Trammell Crow debacle and the vending ordinance. It should be apparent at the very least by the response to administrator guest columns and letters in your pages that the University community is totally fed up with this campus's imminent transformation into little more than a shopping center. If you, editorial staff, truly care about the constituents of the Penn community, stop being a mouthpiece for administration "values." Paul Curcio College '01 Don't invite violence To the Editor: I am sad to say I have become condtioned to the nonsense hyperbole and ultra-liberal rhetoric spewed by University President Judith Rodin and her pathetic administration to coverup and divert attention from their inability to keep students safe. I do not, however, expect this sort of nonsense from a student. I refer to Mike Madden's column "Avoid a knee-jerk reaction" (DP, 3/4/98). The premise and implications of Madden's piece are that students are acting woefully immature and judgmental in attributing last month's gangland violence to the University's hosting of the Philadelphia Public League basketball game. His entire line of reasoning rests on a police sergeant quote to the effect that the violence was the manifestation of a pre-existing conflict. Madden somehow manages to conclude from this that the violence was really not at all related to Penn's hosting of the game. The logic he employs here behooves me. "Is the game really to blame for the violence afterwards," Madden asks, "Or did the shooter just know the intended victim would be there -- which could be the case at any intersection in the city, including on-campus ones, any day?" Of course the violence could have erupted anywhere. That is just the point! Why are you and University officials so keen on making sure that if there is to be violence that it happens here? Why must the University continually operate as a willing host for parties with a proven record of engaging in violence? The possibility that this act was pre-meditated provides all the more reason to cease hosting such events immediately. The causal relationship has been well-established: invite violence into your backyard and violence will come. It is well-known that only last year this particular event was marred by gun shots. Police quotes indicate that violence was expected this year as the area was going to be (and was) inundated with weapons. We do not even need to discuss the Penn Relays as its track record speaks for itself. (Madden would have you believe that because the participants running around the track are not directly causing any crime, all surrounding crime outside of Franklin Field must therefore be random.) Last month, gang warfare came to the streets of Penn. Accounts of the events read like the script of a movie. One would think that the increasing weight of spilled blood on the pristinely Ivy hands of President Rodin and her administration would help to open their eyes. One would be wrong. As the DP reports, "University administrators continue to mull over whether or not to host the event? at the Palestra next year." With graduation looming, for me this is the punchline of a really sick joke. One that is getting less and less funny. Just ask John La Bombard and his family. Barry Peerless Wharton '98 Best students, best GAs To the Editor: The School of Arts Science strongly supports the University's planned college house system. Contrary to the suggestion in Roberto Montaro Samaniego's column "A reality check for residences" (DP, 2/25/98), we, like the other participating schools, will nominate for graduate associate positions only our most accomplished graduate students, who have the endorsements of their graduate programs. Having thus encouraged our finest students to apply, we leave it to the houses, of course, to select from among all applicants those who best meet the requirements of GA service. Walter Licht SAS Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research