Letters to the Editor

Pottruck a good start

To the Editor:

Amid fanfare, pomp and circumstance, the University opened the Pottruck Health and Fitness Center and it looks great. However, the University continues to blatantly ignore the need for an adequate athletic indoor facility.

The men's and women's track teams have won a combined 37 Ivy League titles, yet they do not have an facility to train in during the winter months. Perhaps they are a victim of their own success -- the men are two-time defending champions, but are without an indoor track to train on.

Furthermore, other sports such as softball and baseball are forced to cram into a terrible space for their indoor training. The Hollenback Annex, tucked between Rhodes Field and the highway, is a disgrace for an institution that prides itself on athletic prowess.

Penn is the only Ivy League school without an indoor track. The University has provided a recreational need with Pottruck. It's time to address a varsity need, an indoor facility for athletes to train in.

Joshua Seeherman

Engineering '01

Policy and reality

To the Editor:

A series of ads sponsored by Health Education trumpet the notion that "most Penn students drink less than you think." The statistics, based on a sampling of undergraduates, are that most have four drinks or fewer when they go out.

But aren't "most Penn (undergraduate) students" underage? It sounds to me that when the Office of Health Education gives advice to "most Penn students" to "limit the number of drinks," it is in effect advocating underage drinking!

The problem is that administrators do not have the courage to acknowledge that almost all students at college (including, of course, the administrators themselves when they were in college) -- over 21 or not -- do drink. The current drinking age is unreasonable, and administrators should advocate lowering the drinking age to 18.

Until college administrators have the courage to tell the truth about drinking, students will continue to have a cynical view of official adult opinions on this subject.

Roger Harman

The writer is an owner of the Palladium restaurant and Gold Standard cafeteria. Better options for Biopond

To the Editor:

"So long as the new structure does not... encroach upon [the Biopond Garden's] territory, the risks are well worth the rewards" ("A double-edged sword," The Summer Pennsylvanian, 7/25/02). What the editorial fails to recognize is that the new structure will encroach upon it.

It is to be built on top of flower beds, an herb bed and a huge wisteria vine. It would require removing mulberries, dogwoods and other trees. The big beech near the greenhouses will be killed during construction. Its sensitive roots cannot survive heavy foot traffic, much less a bulldozer.

If the proposed building were simply made taller, the garden would not be destroyed. The provost, a force behind the new building, has conceded that an eight-story building could be built.

A taller building on an adjacent site, such as those of the toxic waste structure and Mudd Building, both adjacent to the garden and both scheduled to be torn down, would save the garden.

Ann Dixon

The writer is a gardener at the Biopond Garden.

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