Football needs more fans

To the editor:

I was very excited at the opportunity for Villanova football and, more importantly, the University to be showcased on national television on Saturday, Oct. 3.

The football team made a great impression for the viewing audience, but the number of fans who attended the game was a big dissappointment. Approx. 8,900 fans were at the game and that included William & Mary’s fans. The stadium holds approximately 11,000 and you would think that more students, alumni and fans would have turned out to support a team that quite possibly will be FCS national champions this year.

We all know the excellent academic and athletic reputation that Villanova University has. Let’s show the rest of the nation that we support our true student athletes.

-Tim Slack, Class of ’65

Kudos to the staff

To the editor:

I am a student at Kansas State University and an Executive Staff Member of the Student Radio Station.

On Sep. 17, I was at the NAB Convention in Philadelphia, PA. The staff members I was with in Philly thought it would be a good idea to check out another student radio station so we went to Villanova. While I was there, I picked up one of your newspapers. When I got back to Kansas, I sat down and read it. I have written articles for two student publications (The Silhouette and Breakaway magazine) while I was a student at Garden 13City Community College. Also, I am an avid reader of K-State’s paper, The Collegian.

When I read your paper I was impressed, not just in the sense that your editors have done their job and the articles were mistake-free, but at the professionalism in your paper.

I wish the newspaper I wrote for and the Collegian here at K-State would take a lesson and write as well as your paper. Also the stories were two-sided, and to what I read, they were very ethical. Ethics is something K-State’s paper struggles with.

Keep up the good work guys, you have a great paper and your students are lucky to have a devoted staff to real news and professionalism through journalism.

-Jacob R. Hughes, TV Director KSDB, Manhattan Ch. 25/91.9 FM “The Wildcat”

Firing back over core requirements

To the editor:

In her article “Science requirements irk to the core,” Matilda Swartz complains about the science requirements of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Failing to see that classes not directly related to one’s major can still have value, Swartz wishes to do away with requirements she does not enjoy.

She complains about the fact that business students do not have the same requirements, but business students are in the School of Business, not the Arts and Sciences school.

It is okay to have an opinion about requirements, but what I don’t understand is why liberal arts majors always have to throw a shot in at business students. Swartz’s comment that a “Bartley uprising would ensue, and not even Public Safety would be able to contain such chaos” if business students had the same requirements only serves to make her look foolish and downgrades an otherwise decent article.

It’s funny that liberal arts majors wonder why they don’t get respect; you have to give it before you get it.

-Joe Lavin, sophomore

Arts student responds to claims of inequality

I must say that I was pretty upset when I opened up a copy of the Villanovan this morning and saw a letter claiming “No, arts students aren’t equal. But it’s OK.” It felt like a joke… but the punchline never came. Can we remember for a second that most Villanova students (and this is even more true, historically) are “Arts” students?

This University wasn’t placed here so that people could get internships at Goldman Sachs – it was placed here to study the Arts and the Catholic values that Villanova enshrines.

It might be tempting to give the Business School a little more credit than it deserves. Sure, Bartley has a number of nice classrooms – but there’s an obvious reason for that: the Business School is necessary to keep the University’s endowment growing.

Like it or not, Villanova pours resources into its business school because a handful of VSB alumni will strike it rich and give back to the University.

And though this is partly because of theskills of its students, that reality is just as much a function of the system we live in.

Think about the best professor you’ve had at Villanova. Is it upsetting that he or she will almost certainly end up earning less than the business kid sitting in Marketing 101 with his or her eyes glazed over?

It is to me. But so it goes; that’s how the world has decided to allocate its resources. Luckily, we still have Universities around to focus on the finer aspects of literature and history, theology and philosophy.

And though it was only mentioned in passing, I bristle at attempts to divide up the Villanova Community.

Some seem intent on dividing up Nova Nation into ideological categories — which is perhaps not surprising given the nature of American political discourse today.

As others have pointed out, VSB students “live for business.”

Is this something to be proud of, especially at our age?

I’ve spent the last several years going on service trips and helping out around Philadelphia — and so do countless other Villanovans. I live for other people when I can — and have never regretted that I can find (even just a little) time to focus on something other than myself and my belongings.

When I turn on the news, I wonder how the people on Wall Street could have wreaked so much havoc on this country. Something tells me that some business students do not wonder the same thing.

I guess, then, the premise may have been right after all. We are most certainly not equal.

-Donald Miller, junior