Letters
7/9/2003Do Treat Students Like Customers
I could not help responding to the "educratic," elitist arrogance of the panel in the article "Should Students Be Treated Like Customers?" in the May-June issue of Minnesota. However, I am not surprised since it was moderated by NPR and starred the chancellor at the University of California-Berkeley.
To have a bunch of professors lament that they are not allowed to get away with teaching whatever junk they want and that the students don't have a clue as to what they need is preposterous. If any of them ever had to survive in the real world outside of academia, maybe they would have a clue as to what is really needed out there. I employed many of these grads and was sad to see what "skills" these people came to us with.
Today's students do deserve the same chance that we had—that is, the type of relevant education available after World War II, not the psychobabble taught today, even in our business schools. I'm afraid this isn't going to happen until all of the liberal left educrats raised in the '60s are long gone.
Rolf Anderson (B.S.B. '71, M.B.A. '76)
Pueblo, Colorado
Greetings from Baghdad
I read with pleasure the March-April issue of Minnesota from the "comforts" of my little corner of the Republican Palace in Baghdad, where I will be living and working for the next few months.
I so enjoyed the article of the men's golf team because, as a civilian, I am the public relations manager for Rise, Inc. For the past 12 years, we have sponsored a fund-raising golf tournament at the Minneapolis Golf Club, and coach Brad James has generously lent me two to four of his best golfers each year to help with the festivities. Golfers can "buy a drive" from them, and they raise a lot of money for us! Coach James is a gem to work with, and I have so appreciated his help throughout the years; I was thrilled when his team earned its prestigious national title.
Margaret Carlson's column, "Our Armed Forces Up Close," naturally struck home with me, and her comments on today's military men and women were terrific. As an Army Reservist, I have been on active duty since December 27 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. After spending several months in Kuwait City embedding media with the Coalition Press Information Center (CPIC), we are now stationed in Baghdad, running the CPIC for the Office of Rehabilitation and Humanitarian Assistance in their efforts to help rebuild Iraq. I wish everyone could have the "up close" sight she had on her tour to see what strong, proud, professional men and women we have serving our nation today.
I just wanted to say hello and express my appreciation to the University of Minnesota for the many ways this fine institution has touched and shaped my life and continues to do so. I am proud to be a graduate.
Sergeant Major Betsey (Miskowiec) DePoint (B.A. '76)
Baghdad, Iraq
Guns for Some?
The May-June issue of Minnesota ["Overheard on Campus"] reports that U.S. Representative Betty McCollum spoke at an International Women's Day conference at the University of Minnesota and said, "I don't ever want to tell my daughter that in order to be safe in the United States of America, she has to carry a gun."
How many armed guards protect Representative McCollum and the United States Congress as they go about their business? Good for the governing class but not good for the governed? How elitist!
George Glotzbach (B.S. '53)
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Maybe Plastic Isn't So Bad
Hurray for Patrick Gruber and his PLA [polylactide] accomplishment ["A Kernel of an Idea," May-June]. Another market for corn, and now we have a substitute for exhaustible petroleum.
However, I doubt that biodegradability is much of a blessing. Plastic bags can be incinerated and, if done properly, produce few undesirable byproducts (except CO2). Why is incineration so much worse than letting PLA plastic bags decay? When biomass decays completely it requires just as much oxygen as was released by photosynthesis when it was formed. Furthermore, decay of biomass usually produces noxious gases, not just CO2, but also methane and ammonia.
The only way photosynthesis makes a net contribution to the earth's oxygen supply is when the biomass (or carbon) accumulates in our soil or in the frames of buildings (lumber). It could be that plastics, which resist decay and accumulate in landfills, help slow the release of CO2.
Tropical forests make little or no contribution to the oxygen supply in our atmosphere because their dead biomass decays so quickly and there is little or no increase in living biomass. Northern forests, where the biomass turns into peat, do make a net contribution to the earth's oxygen supply.
Lloyd Halvorson (B.S. '39, Ph.D. '43)
Warrenton, Virginia
Trashing Bags
Thanks for your uplifting and well-written Editor's Note ["In Awe of Corn," May-June]. Like you, I was heartbroken to learn that I now had to trash not only so-called recyclable containers, but plastic bags. A year ago I had heard that Lunds for "quite a while" had been trashing our bags for us. Not wanting to verify that info, I just continued my habit of "recycling" my bags.
Again, thanks for writing. It's not often I bother to read editors' columns—sometimes a real loss!
Darlene Carroll (B.S. '78)
Minneapolis
Industrial Revolution or Exploitation?
The process for converting corn into plastic, reported in Chuck Benda's excellent article ["A Kernel of an Idea"], has the same feeling of inevitability as does the development of nuclear weapons. If Patrick Gruber didn't invent it, someone else would.
There is also the same feeling of danger. With industry competing for foodstuffs, amplification of local food shortages seems likely. Hungry people already live in view of farms that export their production to get a better price. One can only hope that wheat and rice are unsuitable for similar industrial exploitation.
R. Peter DeLong (Ph.D. '82)
Portsmouth, Rhode Island
A Preposition Problem
An interesting note about an important development, but there is a minor but important misstatement ["In Awe of Corn"]. You are correct in stating that "Gruber developed a process for converting polymers found in corn into a resin." Starch, a glucose polymer, is hydrolyzed or depolymerized to glucose, which is then fermented to lactate, which is then modified and converted into a new polymer not found in corn. Thus, it is not correct to state "products—such as carpeting, upholstery, and diapers—made of corn." Just as one would not say milk is made of cow, but is from the cow.
I enjoy every issue of Minnesota magazine.
Dick Von Korff (Ph.D. '51)
Midland, Michigan
Editor's Note: UMAA executive director Margaret Carlson's column in the May-June issue omitted an important piece of information. In "Picking the Class of 2007," Carlson explained that admission to the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus is increasingly competitive, with a record 17,200 applications received for fall 2003 (the freshman class size is limited to 5,200). With many applicants being denied admission, the admissions office for the Twin Cities campus suggests that applicants not admitted to the University consider attending a community college in the metro area and transferring to the U of M after certain criteria are met. The column should have also encouraged students to apply to the coordinate campuses of the University of Minnesota—at Crookston, Morris, and Duluth. The Duluth campus, however, is also experiencing a surge in freshman applications.
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