Your Voice | Letters to the Editors

In defense of Brandeis

To the Editor:

As a proud graduate of Brandeis University, it was disheartening to read Ashley Takas' piece on 3/25/09 ("Selling cultural cred to the highest bidder"). Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz has said repeatedly that select art works would only be sold if necessary. In addition to incorrectly implying that Brandeis was "liquidating" the entire collection of the Rose Art Museum, Takas fails to realize that while it is a significant element of the campus, the Rose Art Museum is just one aspect of what makes Brandeis a top tier institution of higher education.

Tough times do call for tough decisions and in this unprecedented economic downturn ensuring that Brandeis continues to provide its students with the highest-caliber education, an engaged and experienced faculty, and financial assistance for those in need must be the first priority at my alma mater.

Stuart Isaacs

The author is an Associate Professor at the Medical School

The dangers of Concealed Carry

To the Editor:

It is difficult to tell whether Katherine Rea's most recent column aims to simply provoke or deliberately endorse Concealed Carry. While I acknowledge the need for student safety on an urban campus, firearms do not belong with anyone other than the officers of Penn's Division of Public Safety. These trained professionals, most of whom are veterans of the Philadelphia Police Department, are perfectly capable of protecting students.

Rea does well to suggest the negative aspects of Concealed Carry and ought to follow through by recognizing the absurdity and danger of significant numbers of concealed guns on campus. Situational awareness, common sense,and the heightened presence of Public Safety personnel should suffice to keep us safe on campus. Finally, while Rea's supporting examples of "muggings, rape and armed robbery [.] very close to our campus," attest to an unfortunate and scary reality, they serve more to inflame passions than inform the debate, and do not pertain to the issue at hand: Concealed Carry deals specifically with firearm possession by students on campus. People may do as they please off campus, of course, but I would prefer not to share a classroom with a student armed with a loaded handgun.

Andrew Williams

The author is a senior in the College

It's a joke, Penn. Get it?

To the Editor:

Every year, the incumbent University president tells the new freshman class that it is the brightest in school history. After reading all of the clueless online comments in response to the Joke Issue, I'm starting to wonder about Penn's admission policies. Not only is the issue never on April Fools Day, but it's been that way for 46 years, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the DP has recycled the same explanatory editorial for at least 40 of those.

Ben Koch

The author is 2002 College alumnus

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