Letters

GPSA remains committed to students' concerns

Editor,

I am writing in response to the staff editorial, "Irrelevant agendas sap interest in ASUNM" in Tuesday's edition of the Daily Lobo.

The editorial board criticized the student governments' efforts to find, respond to and put into motion student priorities at UNM. I have held biweekly coffee hours in Higher Grounds to hear what our community has to say. This spring, GPSA held a series of meetings to determine the goals of the graduate and professional students at UNM.

Rather than silencing students' voices, we produced our Strategic Plan, a document containing a road map for the GPSA for the next few years. It is available on our Web site, www.unm.edu/~gpsa. I have been implementing this plan over the last term and hope next year's president will continue.

The priorities of the GPSA presidential candidates were listed in the Daily Lobo last week and realistically relate to the needs of our students. For example, the comment that many students are older and have families is directly reflected in both candidates having goals to improve child care at UNM. Compare these to those listed last year, and take a look to see whether a change has been made and last year's goals achieved.

The GPSA has had a significant increase in voter turnout over the last few years, from 4.1 percent in 2003 to 11.5 percent this year. This is comparatively higher than ASUNM's turnout and is a friendly challenge to increase student participation in the government elections.

The editor criticized the lack of student participation in this year's budget summit. Regent Rosalyn Nguyen, Kevin Stevenson and I spoke at the Monday and Tuesday regents meetings on behalf of students. Indeed, no other student came forward to speak. Where was the editor of the Daily Lobo? Did you take time from your schedule to come forward and speak?

Some business and law students are howling that their tuition is increasing significantly more than the tuition of other students. The additional money is going directly to their school. The alternative is to lose accreditation at Anderson Schools of Management and continue to run the law school deeper in debt to main campus. Both schools provide excellent education at prices well below those of lower-quality schools. Which alternative would you support?

I agree with Stevenson's comments about the need to maintain a high level of education at UNM. Some of the responsibility for receiving that education lies with you and me. If you don't like a high tuition increase, lobby the state Legislature to fully fund UNM as state law and our position as New Mexico's flagship institution demand.

ASUNM and GPSA made an impact on the state to fully fund UNM this year, but a separate problem is that we are compared to the other institutions in the state for funding. There was a reason you applied and came to UNM instead of Highlands University or Eastern New Mexico University. If you feel put upon by tuition increases, ask your legislator to fund UNM as an intensive, nationally ranked research university should be funded and as we have been advocating.

Buckner Creel

GPSA president

Editor's note: As the headline of the staff editorial stated, the Daily Lobo was discussing ASUNM's relevance to students, not GPSA's. Also, as journalists, staff members, including the editor in chief, cannot participate in events the paper covers and cannot take positions regarding policy outside published editorials on the paper's opinion page.

Negativity, inaccuracies rampant in Daily Lobo

Editor,

I read the Daily Lobo every day to get an idea of what is going on around campus. I have to say every day I lose more confidence in the Daily Lobo to accurately report the news.

The first problem concerns the defeat of both of the Lobo basketball teams, eliminating them from the NCAA tournament. I missed both games, so I opened up the Daily Lobo that following Monday hoping to find out how they did. I found the entire paper was full of negative remarks, cartoons and articles completely abusing both teams. Not once did I read anything even remotely positive about the great seasons both of our teams had.

Another problem is the mistakes the Daily Lobo makes when trying to recap sporting events.

For example, in the April 11 edition, there was an account of the game between UNM and San Diego State the previous Sunday. There was a picture to the right of the article showing Ian Hollick sliding into home. The caption explained that Hollick scored after a triple in Saturday's game, yet there is no recount of that game. This leads readers to think the picture is meant to go along with the article on the Sunday game where, according to the article, "all six UNM runs came via homer."

The last problem is the fashion columns written by Matthew Paul Bailey. His self-proclaimed status of fashion guru is anything but deserved. He gets away with mindless ramblings about how people should look based solely on the fact that he is from England. His columns are an excuse for him to compliment himself and insult everyone he feels doesn't meet his standards.

I know writers are entitled to their opinions, but I thought the paper was designed to support our school and accurately report on what is going on around campus.

Paul Blake

UNM student