Letters to the Editor

A worthy policy change To the editor: I spent last year studying at Oxford. I worked extremely hard and earned extremely good marks. I did not use my year away as an excuse to slack off; quite the contrary. However, I support the new study abroad grading policy ("Staff editorial: A free ride to go abroad," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 2/6/03) wholeheartedly. Why? Because despite the fact that the grades I earned at Oxford were very, very high, and despite the fact that my tutors there were pleased with me, I came back to Penn to find my GPA lowered because the scale used to convert the Oxford marks to Penn marks is, to put it mildly, grossly inaccurate. And, I imagine, I was one of the lucky ones because my marks were high enough that the inaccurate conversion couldn't hurt me that badly. In other cases, students have returned with B's for work that would earn them an A here. The new policy is not designed to allow students to spend a year ignoring academic responsibilities. It is designed to prevent the problems which arise when trying to convert grades from one academic system into another and protect students from situations like mine. The administration should be applauded for reforming the old system. Lauren Delfs College '03 Excluding women To the editor: Have you noticed something missing from the Penn Forum events? Female panelists have been missing from many Penn Forum debates, including slavery reparation last February, divestment from Israel in November, the faculty debate on the war in December and affirmative action in January. The absence of female panelists continued with Friday's student debate on war in Iraq. Penn Forum invited Penn for Peace to send a representative to the debate on war in Iraq. Penn for Peace declined to participate in the debate. Penn Forum contacted a male member of Penn for Peace asking him to participate, explaining that it was under time pressure. After asking for more time so that he could bring it back to the group, he was pressured for a decision. He declined after discovering it was going to be another all-male panel. Penn for Peace does not desire to reinforce the exclusion of women from Penn Forum events. We believe that Penn Forum should have supported Penn for Peace in choosing the most appropriate speaker to represent us. We find it highly problematic that an organization devoted to debate and discourse would deny half of the Penn student population an opportunity to engage in controversial and meaningful discussions. We find it highly unethical for SAC to fund an organization which is officially open to all students, yet seems to run its organization in a manner that is discriminatory. Is it a tragedy that women are excluded from Penn Forum debates? No, the tragic aspect is that the people running Penn Forum are going to graduate and enter the "real world" believing that only some kinds of voices are of value in the public sphere. The tragedy is that at a large university, with "intellectual" students, headed by a female president who has repeatedly called for open expression on campus, discrimination is still reinforced every day. Matt GroveCGS '03 Anne WadsworthCollege '03

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