Canvassers should leave students alone on campus

Editor,

"Do you have a minute to help save the environment today?"

If you are reading this and haven't been asked this question while walking around campus in the past month, I'd like to know how you avoided the Environment New Mexico canvassers for so long.

Granted, they aren't the only people around campus who bother students and ask for money. There are also the homeless guys near Cornell Drive. Don't get me wrong - I care a lot for the environment. What I don't care for are people bothering me and other students on campus when we're all just trying to mind our own business and get to class. I'm not just talking about the aforementioned money-grubbers. The people who yell at bystanders, hold up giant signs, build giant displays, blast music or hand out fliers, Bibles and condoms are just as bad. Every year, violence breaks out when someone with unconventional ideas brings a megaphone with them to campus, and fliers almost surely just end up in the nearest trash can or littered on the ground. I'm completely fed up with what these people do to our campus. They make it a place where students can't peacefully walk without being interrupted.

They cause huge amounts of litter. They advertise and solicit in a place that is meant for education. I love free speech, and my annoyance has nothing to do with any particular group's cause, but I think strict regulations are needed on these activities. I would go so far as to say that canvassing, passing out fliers, soliciting and preaching on campus should be strictly limited to student organizations - and even then, their activities should be limited to certain days or events and certain forms of communication.

For example, I have no problem with booths being set up which people can voluntarily approach to get more information. I do have a problem with someone from a particular group practically chasing me down as I try to pass by. UNM is not a mall, an information fair, a religious gathering or a political forum. It is a college campus, and people should be here for one reason - to learn something and get a degree, not to be continually bothered and solicited by whatever groups have enough manpower and resources to print fliers and deploy themselves on campus.

Natalie Klein

UNM student