Editor,
I have had a growing sense of disillusionment toward UNM. When I first came here I was preached to about being more than just a class-taker. It was recommended that I become part of the University community, a part of the school.
With the cancellation of the UNM swim team, I lost any sense of being part of UNM. Something reeked of ignorance and stupidity with the decision to cancel the team, so I decided to just take classes.
When I found a job at CAPS, I knew I was helping the students at UNM and training at CAPS helped to bring a sense of camaraderie. I wondered why standards CAPS set up weren't always followed; why it took seven or more administrators to handle less than 70 tutors, why numbers were more important than helping students learn how to learn, why a place that wouldn't let an experienced tutor be alone and would let a new tutor be alone. So, I was left feeling that our philosophies on tutoring and toward students were different.
Now I tutor for the Manufacturing Engineering Program. Please come by because I get bored when I am not helping people.
So, a small organization isn't as committed to tutoring as I am, but maybe UNM is committed to teaching students. That hope was shattered with the reprimands of Professor Berthold. UNM has a lot of very exceptional teachers and a lot of very bad teachers. The good ones make it worthwhile, the bad ones make UNM . I am told Berthold is a good teacher, though offensive and eccentric. The fact that he is able to teach would be a good reason to keep him.
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We don't get rid of Rudy Davalos and he seems to be both stupid and offensive. He supposedly said a guy was a jerk after the guy gave a low ranking to UNM athletics. Rudy, you convinced the world of how great our athletics will never be.
Berthold won't be writing a column anymore even though he stimulates ideas and debate. The only way to actually figure out your opinions is to argue them and hear some you don't like.
But why force students to attempt to think for themselves and maybe tell a teacher he is full of it?
Why make a student lose that demigod image of instructors?
Just keep them in a comfort zone.
I am now convinced that I have received a poor education. UNM can't be a place of thinking if thinking is frowned upon and can't be a place to grow if the ways in which we grow are taken from us. The 100 best rating UNM recently received had nothing to do with academics, so don't try arguing with it.
Sumner Williams
UNM student
