Letters to the Editor

Morality judged on personal basis

This letter is in response to Gary Morella’s letter to the editor. First of all, same-sex partners were denied health benefits because of pressure from the government. I have not read any article that said the government was in favor of same-sex benefits.

I know you, as writers for the Collegian, are doing your job, but as a friend of Jamarr Billman, I have to tell you that I am quite displeased. The past six months have without a doubt been extremely difficult for him due to academic ineligibility and legal issues. I am sure he feels bad enough without the daily shots he takes from the Collegian. He knows how many people look up to him and count on him both at Penn State and back home. He already admitted to not only letting himself down but the team and his family as well. It causes me great dismay to wake up every morning and read the same bad news about him worded a different way.

The same journalists who write these degrading articles are the same people who call themselves wrestling fans. Let me ask you something, if you are such big fans of the sport, then why does it appear that you just follow it to get your name on the front page, regardless of what kind of article you have to write to do so? Before you write another article in attempts to advance your careers as journalists, why don’t you stop and think about this. If Jamarr is important enough to have his name and face in the paper every day for these issues, then why isn’t he important enough to be given the support he needs to get back on his feet?

Life is a long road of ups and downs for everyone. Jamarr is a good guy. He makes the same mistakes everyone else does. The only difference is that his outstanding wrestling abilities put him in the limelight. Instead of focusing on how to title the next negatively phrased article about him, how about focussing on why it is that people are interested in reading an article about Jamarr Billman in the first place.

Chuck Kimble
sophomore-international business

Laura Hennessey asks the question, "at the very least we should be able to easily understand the professors and teaching assistants. Right?"

She then goes on to say that if you agree with that statement you are allowing "prejudice to interfere with your learning process." This is a misuse of the term "prejudice." She should have used "a language barrier."

I’ve taken my fair share of classes where I had professors who must have handed over obscene amounts of money to someone in order to pass their English proficiency tests. I can tell you that there was no exchange of culture or awe-inspiring growing experience going on in those classrooms. "Hi. I’m going to fail your class because I don’t understand a word that you are saying but please tell me all about how the desserts in Istanbul compare to those here in the United States." Basically, there was a lot of confusion, lack of communication, and overall struggle for those involved. To sum it all up, our education was compromised.

I have no problem with foreign instructors. I just want them to be able to teach me. There’s no room for interpretation of the English language at a college that I’m paying to attend. It’s either English or it isn’t.

Christine Reindl
senior-computer science

Laura Hennessey’s column suggesting students should think of classes with a foreign-speaking instructor as a unique opportunity is severely off-base. Hennessey states that students who complain about having to learn from a foreign-speaking instructor "have allowed prejudice to cast dark shadows over their minds." This could not be further from the truth.

Foreign instructors have taught many classes I have taken. In some culture-based classes this is a valuable asset because a foreign instructor brings to class unique cultural experiences.

However, in other classes, such as physics, a foreign-speaking instructor can be extremely detrimental to a student’s learning process. The fundamentals taught in such classes are difficult enough to grasp when the formula alone are a completely different language. When compounded with an instructor that you cannot understand in lecture and recitation, the course can quickly become impossible.

There is no problem with foreign instructors in classrooms, as long as they have the ability to communicate their thoughts and ideas, as well as understand the ideas and principles their students try to convey to them.

Hennessey suggests that we should all just suck it up and learn from a different culture. Last time I checked there was not a DF next to PHYS 201 in the course guidebook. A physics classroom is not meant to teach you to transcend cultural differences -- it’s meant to teach you physics. Do not confuse an opportunity to learn with the interference of it.

John T. Kmetz III
sophomore-international politics