Tenure bill in legislature
Re: “Bill targeting tenure advances,” Feb. 24 news story.
The tenure “reform” bill is out of line. Because of one incident with one well- known local professor, some state legislators wish to muck up a system that helps ensure we get the best people in our universities.
Professors in research institutions are not merely teachers. They teach and hold office hours, and they act as faculty advisers to undergraduate students. They support graduate students and research with funding they procure themselves. This requires writing ever-increasing numbers of grant proposals for decreasing numbers of grants. They do research and write papers for publication. They attend conferences to present their research, bringing attention to their institutions and building reputations that could lead to more funding opportunities. They sit on endless committees that eat into already overbooked schedules.
And for the privilege of doing the jobs of at least five people, Ph.D.-educated professors in public institutions earn tens of thousands of dollars less than they could in the private sector. Why would anyone do this? In part, tenure is the answer. Tenure allows faculty to pursue research uninfluenced by the political winds of the day, and it provides job security that helps offset the pay discrepancy. Without this carrot, why would the brightest choose a decreasingly attractive career that is less lucrative?
Legislators who lack the expertise to understand the particular contributions of an academic and who don’t “get” what it means to be a professor have no business making tenure decisions. They will merely erode further the quality of higher education in this state by discouraging the best people from becoming academics in Colorado.
Rita Berberian, Denver
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How about a new state motto: “Colorado, Where the Timid Teach the Ignorant.” And while we’re discussing new signs at the borders of our state, I recommend “Educated? Go somewhere else!” banners be added below each sign.
I suggest that the legislature consider the ramifications of the proposed changes to the tenure system. Under the new proposal, tenure can be revoked for negative peer review. When I was at the University of Colorado in the ’60s and ’70s, the most ridiculed professor was our one lonely, outspoken conservative. He would have been terminated without recourse under the new rules.
And, under the new rules, tenure can be revoked for negative student review. This might be a little ill-considered. Look at the student evaluations for staff members. If a professor teaches muppet-level courses, such as Sitcoms of the ’70s or Modern Cinema, the students rate the professor highly. But if the professor teaches advanced mathematics, or physics, or any technical subject that requires intellectual effort, the professor will be down-rated. “Flunk me, will you? Now I can get revenge.” So, engineering and mathematics professors should avoid Colorado. If they last long enough to get tenure, it won’t last long.
Sam Domenico, Golden
Getting used to traffic roundabouts
Re: “No way out?” March 1 news story.
Your front-page article regarding traffic roundabouts is quite good. Having driven in more than 20 different countries in Africa and Europe, I became quite used to roundabouts and traffic circles over many years. I encountered my first one in East Africa 38 years ago on the same day I undertook driving on the left side of the road for the first time.
As your article points out, roundabouts have been in existence in other parts of the world for many generations, and therefore those drivers are trained and conditioned to use them from the outset of their driver training. Not so in this country, and that is the crux of the problem. Too many drivers simply don’t know how to use these traffic circles.
Living in Loveland, I see the same problems all the time; drivers approach the roundabout and come to a full stop at the yield sign, even though no vehicles are approaching from their left. This interrupts what should be a smooth flow of traffic through the circle. Occasionally a driver will enter the circle, failing to yield, and this either causes a collision or, at best, frayed nerves.
The answer to learning to live with and understand roundabouts is driver training. Hopefully younger drivers are getting this training as they qualify for their licenses, but something must be done to train the older drivers who approach these roundabouts with little more than trepidation and loathing.
Gary A. Richardson, Loveland
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I have driven through many European countries for years. Roundabouts are wonderful. The only time I had trouble with roundabouts was when I drove a rental car in London for six days, going clockwise through the roundabouts, and then a few hours later I was in Madrid driving the roundabouts counterclockwise.
I highly recommend roundabouts. I certainly hope we develop more of them throughout the country, as they are safer and move the traffic a lot smoother.
Irwin MacLeod, Colorado Springs
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I live near the intersection of Quincy Avenue and Simms Street, and the traffic light that was previously there was a real imposition. Most of the time, the traffic light wasn’t in sync with the flow of traffic. When the roundabout was put in, it was a godsend. True, many people had to learn to use it, and some people still abuse it by not yielding to traffic on their left in the circle, but you learned to drive defensively. The only frustrating part is getting behind someone too apprehensive to enter the circle, not understanding the rules.
Most of the resentment over the roundabout is just that it’s new. But they are here to stay, so get used to them.
Keith Francis, Morrison
Furor over “Faust”
Re: “Bedeviled by dramatic tension in Bennett,” Feb. 24 news story.
Among the information not reported in recent articles about music teacher Tresa Waggoner’s showing of an educational opera video to elementary school children in Bennett, perhaps the most significant omission is that the video in question, “Who’s Afraid of Opera?” was first released in 1973. This series of videos featured opera superstar Joan Sutherland in a family-friendly, and particularly kid-friendly, setting using puppets and telling the stories of the operas through short excerpts. I applaud Waggoner for trying to bring this wonderful art form to children, and I encourage parents to take a look at this video. When you do, I think your outrage will not be at the content of the material Waggoner used, but at the fact that your music teachers have to use educational materials that are more than 30 years old. I’m confident this standard would not hold in science or math studies.
Brian Clay Luedloff, Greeley
The writer is director of the University of Northern Colorado’s Opera Theatre.
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I enjoyed your take on the “opera controversy” in Bennett, as well as some of the perhaps larger cultural/ political divisions it possibly represents. As a high school educator and one concerned particularly with intellectual freedom issues, I have followed this story with interest.
However, I was surprised to see that (in the sidebar) The Post used wikipedia.org as a source for its information on the opera “Faust.” Are you aware of the controversy surrounding the reliability of Wikipedia as a source?
As a teacher, I struggle daily, encouraging students to critically evaluate the information they find in their research (particularly information found on the Internet). I was somewhat surprised and discouraged to find my efforts undermined to some extent by The Post.
Can’t the newspaper afford a subscription to a source such as Britannica Online? Or I suspect the librarians at the public library (or those working for askcolorado.org, Colorado’s virtual reference service) would be happy to provide information of this sort at no charge.
Leroy Smith, Colorado Springs
Health care in the U.S.
Re: “Health boom tracks profit,” Feb. 26 news story.
In last Sunday’s front-page article on health care costs, you quote Jeff Selberg, CEO of Exempla Healthcare, as saying that poor allocation of resources “is the business of health care. Our community has said we want a market-based approach.”
What community does he live in?
Selberg’s unfortunate comment makes it sound like he and all the other health care giants in Colorado are just hapless victims of market forces beyond their control. That they are compelled to purchase $5 million virtual scalpels to use on a dwindling population of well-insured patients. That somebody else, anonymous in this “community,” is to blame for letting uninsured cancer patients die untreated.
We can’t claim the best health care in the world here in America. Maybe we have the fanciest health care in the world. I hear some affluent Canadians drive to Detroit to get treated with the virtual scalpel, a machine that they may wait in line for in Canada.
But working-class Canadians don’t line up to come to America to get prenatal care, to immunize their infants, to control their child’s asthma, or to treat their diabetes.
We have an astonishing array of high-tech gadgets here that let us treat some sicker patients better at the margins. But our community can’t claim the best health care when we deny it to so many Americans, and invest our resources instead in attracting the well-insured.
Mark Laitos, M.D., Longmont
Food banks and poverty
Re: “More Americans turn to food banks for meals,” Feb. 27 news story.
I wasn’t surprised by this article. The number of people who are turning to food banks for their daily meals is increasing every year. The fact that in 2003, 12.5 percent of the U.S. population was classified by the government as poor says a lot.
This article points out that the newest report shows that 36 percent of people seeking food came from households where at least one person has a job. This means most of these people do have jobs and are not living in welfare, but they live in poverty since the money they make is not enough for them to support their families or even themselves. The other 35 percent came from households that receive food stamps, meaning food stamps are not enough to support their necessities. Government programs are being regulated more and more each year and sometimes they are not benefiting the people who really do need them.
This country does struggle with poverty, and programs like welfare and food stamps are not sufficient to fill the needs that many Americans have every day.
Adriana Aguilar, Westminster
The modern science fair
Re: “Science fair goes under microscope,” Feb. 26 news story.
Thanks for your recent science fair article. It was frightening to learn that only about 3 percent of eligible public schools in the Denver area participate.
To better understand student activities, I visited Douglas County School District’s “Athletics and Activities” website. I learned that each high school in the district has an athletic director – presumably paid from the school budget. There are 15 sports offered, plus cheers and poms. There are five music programs (choir, orchestra, etc). The most “academic” activities are speech and debate, and student council. I counted 24 activities, each of which has paid faculty support. I counted zero activities related to math or science.
We pay teachers, but we devote none of our “activities” budget to encouraging extracurricular activity in technical areas.
America’s world leadership is based on our technical superiority, but our performance on internationally competitive science and math tests is as abysmal as our participation in science fairs. Do we have our priorities straight? Do field hockey and lacrosse really deserve more funding than math, physics, genetics and chemistry? Let’s fund science fair teams, and a competitive statewide math test.
Paul Ziemer, Parker
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I found your article incredibly frustrating. You have missed an opportunity to applaud some of the greatest young minds in our state. I understand the need to highlight the challenges faced by area schools, but I feel you have missed the point.
The science fair encourages exceptional kids to push their limits. Not only do a small fraction of public school kids participate, but also a small fraction of private and charter school kids as well. The science fair fits into the science curriculum in the same way the state basketball tournament pushes kids to excel in their physical education classes. I, for one, am happy to hear of 10th-graders researching treatments for Parkinson’s disease.
Yes, the educational atmosphere of lower-income public schools presents unique problems, but not impossible ones. Certainly we can agree that Aurora Public Schools’ low science achievement goes well beyond the inability to compete in the science fair.
Matthew Douglas, Denver
PUC staff meeting
Re: “PUC business should be public,” Feb. 25 editorial.
In its editorial, The Denver Post objects that its reporter wasn’t allowed to attend a meeting between staff of the Public Utilities Commission and Xcel Energy. The editorial insinuates that something sinister is occurring behind “closed doors.”
The Post’s complaints are baseless and display a lack of understanding of both the regulatory process and the Colorado open meetings law.
The three PUC commissioners are the agency’s decision-making body and all meetings involving commissioner discussion and action are always open to both the media and the public. PUC staff, however, fulfills a distinctly different role from the commissioners, and the open-meetings law does not apply. The law clearly defines a state public body as one that has been delegated a decision-making function “but does not include persons on the administrative staff of the state public body.” This quote is directly from the open-meetings law referenced in the editorial, and the language is not debatable.
Under its audit and investigatory function, PUC staff conducts meetings with utilities on a daily basis, and more often than not those meetings will include discussion of proprietary information that is confidentially protected by law. Such was the case when the staff met with Xcel to discuss the electricy outages of Feb. 18. The staff is in the initial stage of gathering complete and accurate information about what occurred. Neither the commissioners nor their advisers were present at the meeting.
Once staff has completed gathering all available information, it will take that information and any recommendations to the commissioners who will decide, in a public forum, what action is warranted. The Post, and everyone else, will be more than welcome to hear what Xcel, staff and the commissioners have to say at that time.
Doug Dean, Director, Colorado Public Utilities Commission
TO THE POINT: Short takes from readers
So, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing the case of Anna Nicole Smith and her inheritance. That’s the equivalent of calling 911 if your shoe comes untied.
Richard McCormack, Denver
Regarding the Bush administration’s decision to let our ports be run by the United Arab Emirates: What’s next, putting Cheech and Chong in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency?
Steve Wright, Longmont
I have a novel idea about running our ports: Why not let Americans do it?
Charles McFarland, Denver
If we can find a way to convert all the snake oil and hot air that comes out of Washington every day into useable energy, we can not only gain oil independence, but we can put OPEC out of business.
Jon Rogers, Aurora
Headline: Bush administration cures cancer. Mike Keefe’s take: Bush administration policies cause thousands to lose jobs.
Mark Sear, Lakewood
I was disappointed to see that Thomas Friedman’s solution to Muslim unemployment was focused on science and technology. I would rather have more of their art, music and wonderful mysticism. We don’t need more iPods.
Ann Bolson, Evergreen
So, the cigarette lobby has evidently bought our lame Colorado Senate. I hope it wasn’t too expensive – we want to keep cigarettes affordable, don’t we?
Glenn Taylor, Denver
President Bush should always be welcomed with open arms throughout India, considering all of the jobs he created there.
Rick Cutler, Golden
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