Stop funding pet projects

Your impassionate plea for letters brought a tear to my eye. It moved me and now I feel compelled to air my complaints about Western Kentucky University.

I have spent many years at Western. And every semester (without fail) Western spends money on a pet project that does not benefit students. I have compiled in this letter a short list of projects that weren’t meant to benefit students:

1. Diddle Memorial Park

2. The New Bell Tower

3. The New Diddle Arena

4. The Wall on University Boulevard

5. The New Faculty Parking Lot

6. The Pepsi Concession

Maybe one day Western will actually focus on students’ needs rather than Western’s wants. Maybe it will improve the student parking situation (e.g. lower tag prices and create more lots). Or maybe improve the lighting situation on campus (there are several unlit spots that need lights). Or possibly lower food prices so that those of us on campus don’t have to take out student loans to eat. And one final suggestion: stop making pet projects and spend money on building the dorms you promised.

John Baize

Bowling Green freshman

Western is a bad business

Western is a business whose product is education and whose consumers are students. My previous retail employer, Target, approached parking and customer service differently than Western does.

Target wants its customers to be able to park as close to the front door as possible and requires all employees to park at the end of the lot. Customer surveys are conducted twice a year at every location and randomly by the Internet via special receipt print-outs. Target realizes the only reason it exists is because of customers and Target desires to increase satisfaction and continue to win consumer dollars.

Last year I gladly received surveys at WKU asking me to rate my instructors. However, I was upset to find no interest in my opinion on other aspects of Western. For instance, the student customers who pay for a parking “permit” have to walk for blocks or even park miles away and catch a shuttle bus to their classes. This is not good service and the college of business would probably not give an “A” grade to a student who proposed it was.

I challenge the administration, faculty and staff, starting with President Gary Ransdell, to put a commuter tag on their cars for a year and occasionally to park off-campus and ride the bus to work. Give the reserved lots closest to administration buildings and classrooms to the student consumers. If this were done, a convenient, effective and centralized traffic and parking plan for campus would probably be higher priority.

Bob Bell

Bowling Green sophomore

Join the Green Party

Are you angry over the events of Sept. 11, but appalled by the senseless assault led by George W. Bush to assassinate Saddam Hussein? Is it because you realize the consequences could mean isolation and hatred from the rest of the world, or more practically, breed hundreds of new terrorist groups from the surviving debris with their life’s mission to destroy us all? If so, be aware that a party exists with core objectives of nonviolence and a policy of non-discrimination based on cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity.

Friends, it is the Green Party I speak of. Yes, that’s right, the same party famous for receiving the line “wasted vote” in the 2000 election. Didn’t you find it odd, as I did, that this so-called “wasted vote” cost Gore the election? Suddenly we see the magnitude of what an idealistic vote can mean! In these times, we can no longer afford to listen with deaf ears to the first line spouting out of the mouths of politicians with their own political interests in mind! We as a people have the power to change the future, you and I.

The Green Party, now nationally recognized, is led by Ralph Nader. Its top ten objectives are grassroots democracy, ecological wisdom, social justice, equal opportunity, nonviolence, decentralism, commodity-based economics, feminism, respect for diversity, personal and global responsibility and future focus and sustainability.

It is out of a firm desire to change the world for the better that I intend to create an organization on campus to further the ideas and intentions of the Green Party. While I do not claim to be a leader and do not wish to create that myth, I am someone who wants to make a difference. If you feel as I do and desire to make this organization a reality, please call me at this number: 779-7428.

Robert Reynolds

Nashville Senior

No place to park

My car was towed within my first three classes here at Western for apparently being parked in a yellow zone. I am not angry this happened because I thought it might happen anyway. I am not angry that I had to pay $70 for a parking ticket and to get my car out of storage. What angers me is that the school continues to sell parking permits for spaces that don’t exist. As the woman behind the police desk told me, “People still need to park their cars.” My question is, where?

Leigh Krampe

Louisville freshman