Letters to the Editor

Thon must grow until there’s a cure

Jason Fagone’s column misses the true interpretation of what Thon means. Thon makes some seemingly impossible things a reality. You can read about some of them in the profiles of families touched by The Four Diamonds Fund. When the fund was founded, the primary purpose of it was, as it is today, to cover any medical expense associated with the care of children with cancer at Children’s Hospital at the Hershey Medical Center. To give you an idea of what that means, a one-night stay in the hospital costs $600. A common medication given to our patients is $1,000. The cost of a wig to help ease the trauma of losing your hair is about $80.

Reading Jason Fagone’s column, I initially thought he would try to be open-minded in his assessment of Thon. As I continued reading, however, it seemed to me that it was nothing more than sour grapes by someone who resents the greek system and its efforts to do something worthwhile for the community. His two main complaints with Thon -- the overly competitive nature and the "sickening" corporate sponsorships -- are shallow at best.

Competition is what drives us to be better. Fagone uses the point of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and Delta Delta Delta sorority establishing fund-raising quotas as an example of how competitive Thon has become. So what if they establish quotas? He said they have no punishment if the quotas aren’t reached; they are more of a suggestion than anything. Having a tangible goal is important in accomplishing anything. Obviously, organizations participating in Thon want to improve upon the previous year’s accomplishments. If this means a 33 percent increase in funds every year, great! However, I don’t think organizations have become hell-bent on beating the previous year’s totals.

As for corporate sponsorships, Fagone acknowledges that he has no problem the local businesses’ contributions. His main argument is against large companies such as MBNA, which is contributing money to organizations based on how many credit card applications they can "hawk" to students. Fagone calls this a "sickening attempt to justify selling students into a life of credit card debt." I see nothing sickening about it. Last time I checked, having a credit card did not mean you had to use it or run up debts on it. If Joe Student can’t figure out how to use a credit card responsibly, that is his fault, not MBNA’s.

Jeff Hall
senior-chemical engineering

Would you feel second-class if you had to pay a long-distance charge to call and register for classes? How about not having the means to swipe your ID card for lunch, or what about having to teach yourself in a self-paced math class? Well, this is the case at some commonwealth locations. This past weekend, the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments had the pleasure of having Penn State President Graham Spanier at our meeting for an open discussion. After asking him if he considered a student from a Commonwealth College campus and University Park campus equal, he asked me to elaborate on the question. After a couple of seconds Spanier responded, "The safe answer would be … yes," and he continued not to answer the question directly. "Well," I thought to myself, "what is the real answer?"

Spanier continued in his remarks to include that campuses do have some problems and that we all should come together to resolve these problems, but the truth still remains. Nearly half of our prestigious university’s students are almost overlooked regarding important issues. And this is what the CCSG Central Staff is here to address. With the momentum that has built during the last couple of weeks we are looking forward to bringing most, if not all, commonwealth locations up to par with University Park. We do understand that some campuses do not have the demographics to fully support part- or full-time nurses, psychologists, tenure track faculty and etc., but there needs to be more support for all of these students.

Our cohesive staff is dedicated to the mission of serving all Penn State students and representing them on such issues as online registration and improving housing and food services. We hope to have these issues addressed and fully attended to by the end of the semester. We are excited and enthusiastic to work with fellow student organizations, faculty and staff to bring the prestige and services of Penn State to all of its locations.

Jon-Michael Roman
president, Council of Commonwealth Student Governments