Letters to the Editor

University High expansion plans frustrating

There are a lot of things at Fresno State that aren’t perfect.

The mismatched architecture from different eras is odd. The fountain that runs at mysterious times makes me raise an eyebrow.

The football team that could lose every single national honor and still get a page in The Collegian while the equestrian team can take three national championships and maybe, if they’re lucky, get a paragraph is downright frustrating.

But the only thing that makes me truly angry is the presence of University High School and its proposed expansion into the heart of Fresno State.

Loud and chattery high schoolers who roam in wolf packs, clogging the sidewalks.

There’s nothing quite as degrading as being checked out by some hormone-ridden tenth-grader, unless it’s being checked out by four of them simultaneously.

Heaven forbid you have a class in the Lab School, right next door to the UHS, especially in the afternoon.

My drama class there is often plagued by shouting teenagers waiting for class or some little band of would-be musicians creating a cacophony that would have made Souza stop writing his marches.

Now the administration is looking to build another building for the school on the site of the old amphitheater. My question to them is this: if you have the money for a new building, why is it not going to be of benefit to the twenty-thousand-plus college students here?

Why not renovate one or more of the older buildings like the North and South Gyms or the Conley Art Building?

It is Fresno State University, after all.

— Heather Billings
Junior mass communication and journalism major

“Incidental attributes” not so unimportant

In regards to Benjamin Baxter’s half-joking article in Friday’s (March 24) Collegian, I have to say that, though I agree we should assess people by their worthy attributes rather than what is incidental, I was surprised that he considered religion and sexuality only incidental aspects of identity.

He suggests that in order to have an equal society, society must be equally apathetic toward all people and their pursuit of happiness.

The special treatment of religious, ethnic, and sexual groups that he fears will lead to faction is nothing special at all, but the plain and simple acknowledgement of human diversity and dignity.

Mr. Baxter advocates not color-blindness but total blindness.

When asked if he had any friends who were Muslim, he rejoined, “Wouldn’t it be wrong to even care?”

Wrong to care? We all have friends who have a favorite song or movie. Try telling them that the song is silly, that the movie is stupid; your friendship will grow a little more distant.

Now try telling them that you don t care what their favorite song or movie is; you will lose the friendship entirely.

We have to appreciate that the most important thing to any human being is his or her own self, that people long for their definition of themselves to be recognized and respected.

Is it so hard to understand that someone might take their own religion seriously, that someone might see their own sexuality as a little more than incidental and, as such, a worthy attribute?

— Timothy Ellison
Junior classical studies major

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