OK, I'll admit it. I've never written in to the Collegian to "chide and insult students at (my) alma mater" before, but that is because I have never before read anything in its pages as utterly idiotic as the letter submitted by Matt McLaughlin and Eric Pipal.

Yes, the Collegian is a student-run newspaper, but to suggest that alumni not have the right to submit our opinions to it is ludicrous. If we shouldn't voice our opinions in the paper, then I guess we shouldn't root for Penn State sports teams either, because only students are on the teams. I guess we can just dismantle the alumni association as well, because who would want to be associated with a school where he is no longer a student. And, as an alumna, I certainly wouldn't want to donate any money to my alma mater, because that would clearly make me a "complete and total loser."

As for the idea that people should ever sit back and wait for someone else to voice an opinion for them instead of voicing it for themselves, do I really even have to state the obvious here? If everyone waited for some unknown other person to submit his or her opinion, there would be no letters written to the editor at all, including yours.

Last, if you had done any research at all, you would have discovered that the Collegian plainly states it does not have the space to publish every letter it receives, and the decision of which letters to publish rests with the editors. If the student editors choose to print letters submitted by alumni over letters submitted by current students, they must have good reasons for doing so, and judging by the caliber of letter you submitted, I can easily see why!