LETTERS: Thursday, December 2, 1999

Don't rub it inDon't rub it inTo the Editor: We are of course well aware that President Rodin makes good money for a job well done; however, what about the many faces behind the woman? Could she run this University without her staff assistant, secretary, speech writer or receptionist? Would students apply in droves to the University without the efforts of our admissions staff? For every business administrator, coordinator, administrative assistant, accountant and clerk, please do not print another article like this until the headline reads: "Penn employees' salaries tops among universities." Andrea King Administrative Assistant Legal Studies Department Hoop dreams To the Editor: As we begin another exciting season of Penn basketball, we look forward to your support both on the road and at the Palestra. With an exciting 1999-2000 schedule, our team looks forward to defending our Ivy League championship in college basketball's most historic gym. We feel that the energy of our fans often makes a difference in the outcome of the game. While we encourage you to be as enthusiastic and supportive as possible, we ask the Penn basketball community, players and coaches included, to practice good sportsmanship. We ask that our fans please remember that enthusiastic cheering is greatly appreciated, but the use of inappropriate language or profanity does not reflect well on our University. We will do our best to make Quaker basketball exciting for students, alumni, community members and families. We ask your cooperation in making the Palestra an enjoyable place for anyone and everyone to watch a great game. Thanks for your continued support. We look forward to seeing you at the Palestra. Fran Dunphy Michael Jordan College '00 Matt Langel College '00 Dunphy is coach of the Penn men's basketball team. Jordan and Langel are team co-captains. Interview etiquette To the Editor: Like Josh Callahan, I am dismayed at instances of boorish, rude, or inappropriate behavior by recruiters, either on campus or during interviews at employer sites. ("Etiquette for interviewers, too," DP, 11/30/99). I am appalled at behavior that harasses students sexually or in any other way. In workshops and in our written materials we stress how important it is for us to hear about any inappropriate or questionable behavior or questions. We urge students to speak to a counselor, or to fill out a complaint form available both at OCRS and Career Services. All the information reported will be held in strict confidence unless the student requests that we follow up with the company involved. Let me assure you that we do follow up, and have on occasion banned both individual recruiters and organizations from our campus. We will continue to do everything we can to ensure that Penn students are treated with respect throughout the interviewing process. Patricia Rose Director, Career Services Bad motivation To the Editor: Having attended Harvard University as an undergraduate, I am somewhat accustomed to a certain insanity in the daily life of my educational institution. Generally, I am content to take it all in, reflect quietly, and occasionally map well-intentioned cause to disastrous social effect, in the comfort of my own mind. However, I couldn't do that yesterday morning because I read in the DP that Tuesday night a model, former veejay and self-anointed health-care advocate spoke on women's health in Hill College House. Am I crazy? Karen "Duff" Duffy is being paid by a company that makes a birth control pill. She gave a live commercial Tuesday night for Organon's Mircette pill, and Penn billed it as objective "Learning About Sexual Health!" A quick crash course about hormones: They are molecules which have been designed in the course of evolution to effect relatively rapid change in the state of an organism. Ingesting synthetic hormones is a very big deal; witness the full page of microscopic cautionary print which appears on the flip side of any birth-control ad in a magazine. I guess those side effects were covered extensively by the lecturers at MTV's prestigious School of Veejaying and Women's Health. I'm glad Karen Duffy was here to help us make sense of it all. It is true that "Contraceptives are not for everyone," as Hester Sonder so brilliantly understated in the article. Who better, then, to help women at Penn to decide whether contraceptives are for them than an employee of a contraceptive-manufacturing company? Would we tolerate that kind of conflict of interest in any other area of our community life? Some of the people who attended the event may have left with the impression that they had heard a balanced, intellectually honest and altruistically minded presentation on "A New Age in Women's Health Care," and that is nothing short of a crime. Gene Civillico Biomedical Ph.D '04