Monday, 5/12/97 Letters
UCLA education doesn’t promote thinking It is about time
somebody was honest about UCLA, education and intelligence. I would
like to congratulate Bryan Szabo’s article (Friday, "Hypocrisy
honored by degree"), despite its defensive rhetoric. UCLA is a
bastion of bulimic intelligence, not critical intelligence. Not to
say that UCLA students are stupid; on the contrary, it does take
intelligence to robotically regurgitate brainless crap to pass a
class. It is the type of the intelligence that I and Szabo contend
as the problem. It’s not critical and definitely not independent. I
too was told, as Bryan Szabo writes, "Don’t think – just plug in
numbers. It doesn’t have to make sense" from my TA. Stephen Jay
Gould, the famous Harvard evolutionary biologist, promoted the
small, liberal arts college education he received at Amherst
College as the ideal education in the beginning of his speech when
he visited the campus last quarter. With that type of atmosphere,
intellectual growth grows to a greater extent than in a UCLA class
of 100. Additionally, I honestly think that UCLA will never change
and will continue to create dittoheads by the dozen and paternalize
education while students continue to deify their departments. John
Foxworthy Fourth year Economic/international area studies Fees?
Rising? No… I was struck by a comment from Thursday’s paper in
Mason Stockstill’s article "High-caliber students comprise incoming
class". In response to Assistant Vice Chancellor Tom Lifka’s
statement regarding college tuition, if he honestly believes that
"our fees remain flat, while the fees at other universities of our
caliber are on the rise," then I’d like to have some of what he’s
smoking. Ryan Tamm Fourth year Cognitive science Dalis must also
pay for infractions I just read the article about the softball
program, but Peter Dalis says that the penalties are too extreme
because he already cleaned house. Well, I say the problem starts at
the top with Peter Dalis. Maybe we should look for a new person to
head the sports program. This whole softball problem certainly was
not unexpected when the star pitcher leaves for Australia right
after winning the NCAA and does not even take exams. Did she even
go to classes? This sounds like something at USC, not UCLA. Bob
Richard Rhode Island Basketball fan