Letters to the Editor

A questionable decision

To the Editor:

It's one thing to censor and another to give a forum for a convicted would-be pedophile. The Daily Pennsylvanian's editors just gave "Brother Stephen" another megaphone to speak on our campus ("Brother Stephen Responds," DP, 01/29/04). Craig Stephen White was convicted of soliciting sex from a minor. Frankly, I don't think anyone should call him "Brother" or "Reverend" -- no one should revere an attempted child molester. While it has the right to publish as it likes, the DP showed very poor judgment in publishing Mr. White's letter, while censoring dozens of others more deserving of the space and forum of 14,000 potential paper readers and hundreds more online.

Thomas Foley

Wharton '04

TAs and the language barrier

To the Editor:

I am writing to commend you for your Jan. 27 article and editorial highlighting the English language training and requirements for international graduate students who teach: It is an issue important to the graduate community.

Last year, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, the Graduate Student Associations Council and the Undergraduate Assembly formed a joint task force to examine issues surrounding graduate teaching, and one of the major topics of investigation was precisely the issue of teaching by those whose first language is not English. The report detailed that graduate groups had decidedly uneven records in ensuring that their students were aware of the requirements and/or had their visas in time to participate in training sessions.

Such administrative deficiencies can have alarming consequences for incoming international graduate employees, including being denied the opportunity to earn money by teaching despite being unable to pay for their education in any other way, sometimes without prior knowledge that English as a Second Language certification was even required. Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania, of which I am a member, has consistently advocated for the employment rights of international graduate employees, and a foundational element of its contract demands is the provision of the proper amount of training necessary for graduate employees to be successful in the classroom, including ESL training leading to certification.

Jeffrey Brown

GAS '10

Students and political service

To the Editor:

In Elizabeth Rossi's article ("Student political interest on the rise," DP, 01/28/04), Fox Leadership Senior Fellow Mary Summers is quoted as saying that perhaps adding a political component to community service courses would be an effective way of relating the issues students care about to what is happening in local and national politics. As a co-founder of United Leaders at Penn, a new chapter of a national organization dedicated to making our generation see politics as a means for social change, I could not agree more.

Since Sept. 11, there has been a spike in civic engagement, but this has been largely channeled toward community service. United Leaders is committed to bridging this service gap -- making people recognize that community service and political service go hand in hand. Working in a soup kitchen is a first step toward solving hunger; working in a soup kitchen and then using that firsthand knowledge to shape hunger policy is much more effective.

Penn's student body and the University as a whole are dedicated to community service, but we need to focus on political service as well. Adding a political component to community service courses is certainly an important, logical first step to take.

Jennifer Bunn

Wharton/College '06

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