Letters to the Editor

For dear old Penn

To The Editor:

Although I am a former Daily Pennsylvanian editor and a current employee of ESPN, I write this letter as neither. Instead, I write as a graduate of the University and someone who wants to see the best for his alma mater.

This weekend, the Penn football team faces Harvard in a game that will basically decide the Ivy League championship. Both teams are undefeated, and ESPN's national pregame show, College GameDay, will be broadcast live from Franklin Field. The game itself will be shown on the YES Network, which picked it up due to the importance of the game.

College GameDay usually originates from places like Notre Dame Stadium or Tennessee's Neyland Stadium. Saturday will be the first time that the show visits a Division I-AA school.

This is a chance for the University to shine on a national stage. Although Franklin Field can hold the entire University community twice or three times over, anyone who cares about the way Penn appears to the rest of the world ought to show up and support the Red and Blue, for while this is a chance for the University to shine, an empty Franklin Field would make the community look horribly apathetic.

I hope that people show up and present the University well to the rest of the nation. I hope that ESPN can walk away with only praise for Ivy League football and its fans. I hope that the fans at the game do not throw their toast at the end of the third quarter and then simply leave.

This has been a tough year for Ivy League athletics, as the place of sports in academia has been questioned and cuts have been made. Still, Saturday's game should be a brilliant one, with two undefeated teams meeting with a championship at stake.

The media are providing a championship atmosphere -- here's hoping that the University does as well.

Jesse Spector College '02

Fighting the future

To the Editor:

Ikea is trying to come into urban Philadelphia. The company chose the virtually empty CSX railroad lot in South Philadelphia, near a Target, Wal-Mart and Home Depot. But no member of City Council has submitted the proposal to change the zoning of the site from industrial to commercial (" Ikea may open Phila. branch," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 11/14/02). Ikea has indicated that it will cease consideration of the site by Dec. 19. We are about to lose a great retail anchor that gives value and convenience to Penn students and employees.

The Philadelphia Regional Port Authority indicated that it "is not opposed to Ikea establishing a presence in the City," according to William McLaughlin, a spokesman for the PRPA. The PRPA, he states, opposes the location of Ikea in "the heart of the port industrial district," according to a Nov. 10, 2002 letter to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

If this is the heart of the port district, why is it an empty parking lot?

Why would officials balk? Possibly because Ikea will not require vast political subsidies that are distributed as local pork, such as was the case with the Kvaerner shipyard boondoggle.

In 1997, Kvaerner received $429 million in subsidies, took the money and then exited shipbuilding altogether. Politicians got to garner union votes for bringing jobs that never came.

This project is important, and I urge all members of the University community to send a quick fax to members of City Council, the Port Authority and others.

Penn must consider a whole-city approach if it wants to attract grads who will stay on and enrich Philadelphia. The current local political climate favors forcing Philadelphia to reemerge as a blue-collar paradise. It gets votes, but it doesn't work. The past is not always prologue.

Lisa Parsley Nursing Graduate '01

Early decision just fine

To the Editor:

Matthew Mugmon's comparison of Yale's new early action policy, allowing applicants with early acceptance to apply elsewhere, to Penn's current early decision policy, requiring an applicant to commit to matriculation at Penn if accepted (" The truth about early decision," DP, 11/14/02) ignored the program's most important result.

When I received my early decision acceptance from Penn in 1968, I withdrew my applications to other schools. Consequently, no student was denied or wait-listed at another school because of my application, the applications of my classmates who applied to other universities were not compared to my application to such schools and I was not flooded with trophy acceptance letters while some other student was denied acceptance to his choice school or wait-listed and forced to await my decision to go to Penn.

It is delusional to believe that a wait list policy adjusts perfectly for accepted students who do not matriculate simply because students often have to make arrangements for financial aid, travel and accommodations well before their waiting list status changes.

Penn's early decision program allows more students to be accepted at their choice schools. Contrary to Mugmon's appraisal of our system, Admissions Dean Lee Stetson has it right after all.

Reeve Chudd College & Wharton '73 Wharton Graduate '74

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.