Editor,
This is in response to Caleb Fort's article in Tuesday's Daily Lobo. First, I agree with the statement that white professors outweigh professors of different ethnicities. I do not see this as a positive or negative thing, though - it is just the way things are.
People should not see a need to define their role models based on skin color or limit the counsel they will receive to certain predetermined races. Perhaps being white myself, I do not see the particular need one would have to define one's role models or advisers by skin color. But I would not be apprehensive about receiving advice from someone who had a different skin color than me. Also, I would not hesitate to receive advice from professors from foreign countries such as Poland or Sweden in addition to American-born professors.
Ideally, it would be nice to completely level the playing field at the University to where everyone was even, but I do not think the solution is to merely hire more minority faculty. This would open the issue of affirmative action, and individuals who might be well-qualified would be turned away in order to meet a quota that looked nice. I agree that having more minority faculty would look nice, but sometimes one must sacrifice the niceties.
Alex Roessner
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UNM student
