Collegian
April 17, 1986
Student Opinion:
I am a senior here at Behrend
and have never written an article
for The Collegian, probably
because I was convinced they
would never publish it. I was
shocked to see a 'student opinion'
on, of all things, party habits,
published. I have been a com
muter, dorm student and apart
ment resident and over the years I
have felt prompted to write about
many injustices done to the
students faculty and staff. Now I
think I can sum up one of the ma
jor injustices against students
properly.
Coming from a fast-paced city
environment I find Behrend's
tranquility very satisfying. That's
why I'm a senior here. There is,
however, a lot of oppression go
ing on. I'm refering to our social
lives and disciplinary system. This
does include the staff's archaic
views on alcohol.
Let's start at the top, the apart-
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THE CARD GALLERY
K-Mad Plaza East
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899-8782
Send the one
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ihr
Apartment residents don't need RA's supervision
ments. We started the year with
six RAs, so out of 192 spaces six
were filled at a cost to the univer
sity of $4,500 plus utilites. Since
the university furnished their rent,
this sum is trivial on our tuition
bill, but if those six spaces were
filled, housing would make $4,500
more and logically could lower
rent $24.19 per person per
semester. They already have plans
to cut the number of RAs down to
two next year.
I say, "Why have any?" Apart
ment dwellers are supposed to be
mature upperclassmen and, from
what I have seen, are more mature
in years and class standing than
most all the RAs. The only pur
pose they serve is to bust parties
and let people in when they are
locked out. I think that another
arrangement can be made for the
latter and as for busting parties
why? Noise is their excuse. If my
neighbors were to noisy I would
say something. If that doesn't
help I'm sure that security could
deal with the situation without the
expense of having live-in baby sit
ters (RAs).
"Well," you might say,"what
about damage to the apart
ments?" There is a certain pride
in living in one and if it gets
damaged, the student has the
responsibility to pay for it. I
would never let someone ruin my
apartment. Upperclassmen should
be respnsible drinkers anyway.
If upperclassmen are not
responsible drinkers they pro
bably came from the dorms. OK,
so underclassmen do not have the
maturity to live together and
respect each other's rights. But
the way RAs hunt down parties is
ridiculous sometimes. I was sitting
in a room once with five other
guys waiting to watch Monday
Night Football and got busted.
We were neither drunk nor loud,
so you have to ask-why? Maybe is
because RAs are jealous. I mean
do you know a single RA who had
a social life before he became an
RA? I know a couple but they
were financially desperate.
I know that I felt very oppress
ed when I lived in the dorms_
Sometimes it was more like a
prison or monastery and the food
Donald Kaul continued from page 5
way to deal with the problem was
to put a quota on the number of
citizens each tiger could eat. Or to
make illegal the allowing of one's
self to be eaten by a tiger.
Provinces in India don't do
that. When they experience a tiger
crisis they go right to the heart of
the problem, which is a surplus of
tigers. They stage a tiger hunt.
In somewhat the same way, the
root cause of our liability crisis is
that we have too many lawyers.
Possibly you've heard the story
about the fellow who opened a
law office in a town that had no
lawyers and found he wasn't mak
ing a living? Until a second lawyer
started a practice across the street,
and there was more than enough
buiness for both of them. That's
lawyers; the more of them there
are, the merrier they get.
You think that's an exaggera
tion, don't you? Let me give you
an example: About a year ago a
fellow in Washington, D.C.,
bought a new BMW sedan from a
dealer for $19,600. Shortly
thereafter the FBI showed up at
his house and confiscated the car.
It had been stolen. The man sued
the dealer and was awarded
$28,000, which covered his loss
the cost of renting a substitute car
and...his lawyer. The dealer then
sued the man who sold it the . car
and got $3,000, the 28
grand...plus attorneys' fees. That
pinion
doesn't help the atmosphere. I
can't really blame the
underclassmen, the staff has set a
strict system and beating this
system means you get totally
trashed and do something that
everyone in the cafeteria will be
talking about the next day. That's
not what I would call setting the
environment for responsible
drinking. It's sort of like turning
twenty-one, it takes the fun out of
beating the system. I talked to a
former student off the same floor
in the dorms but years ago. He
said they had keg parties on the
floor with the off-the-record con
sent of the staff. The students
controlled the tap and likewise the
damage. Nobody wants to pay
damage for some drunk jerk and
that's the best type of discipline
going. The staff can oppress all
they want but peer groups really
decide the conduct of individuals.
As long as the staff is the enemy,
its a major victory , to have a party
in your room. If being irresponsi
ble makes you important, this
school is going to have a social
problem.
I can tell you that being a com
muter has its decided advantages.
Being able to pop a beer open and
not have to close your curtains,
lock the door and ask who's there,
man has sued the man who sold
him the car, who has sued a dealer
who sold him the car, who was
planning on suing the rent-a-car
company from which it bought
the car. At each point, a lawyer
will rake in a bit of the pot. Before
it was over, that BMW will be a
$60,000 car: $20,000 in transpor
tation and $40,000 in lawyers. Is
that any way to run a country?
Japan certainly isn't run that
way. Japan hardly has any
lawyers, at least not in com
parison to the United States.
That's the secret of its success.
They'll try to make you believe
the Japanese are so efficient
because the Japanese have a spirit
of cooperation and everybody
sings the company song, but don't
believe it. It's because they don't
encourage their best and brightest
to enter a profession that divides
up pies rather than bakes them.
Japan, by the way, doesn't have a
liability insurance crisis.'
We have to get rid of some of
our lawyers. I don't suggest a
lawyer hunt, expcept perhaps as a
last resort, but there are some in
termediate measures that might be
taken:
—Close all law schools at
publically-supported universities.
There is no good reason for tax
money going toward the training
of people who, for the most part,
will spend their lives helping peo
II - E
is great. Maybe that's because as a
commuter you can live in an adult
world and you're treated with
respect and act accordingly.
Maybe that's what growing up is
about, but Behrend College cer
tainly doesn't give you the chance
to socially grow into a responible
adult. That's why everyone calls
Behrend a 'suitcase college' and
one look at the student resident
parking lot .on the weekend and
you know this is true:--
Why did I write this? I think
Behrend is ready for a change and
I challenge the current staff and
administration to change the suit
case college image Behrend has.
Another concerned student,
Eric Bryant
Thanks for the letter. But I've
been a commuter in my Behrend
career, and from what I hear, I
would not want it any other way.
Off the subject though, the only
reason the Collegian hardly has
any letters to the editor is because
we don't receive many. To date,
we've published everything receiv
ed. The purpose of the "Opinion
Page" is just what it says—it's for
you, the students—to voice your
opinion. pm
ple and corporations escape
justice and evade taxes. What lit
tle legitimate call there is for that
sort of thing can be answered by
private schools. If we found
ourselves running short of pro
secutors, we might open up a few
"legal service academies" at
public schools for the express pur
pose of training prosecutors and
give the students a free education
in return for a commitment to
work for a time putting bad guys
in jail.
—Make ethics mandatory. Fully
a third of the profession could be
eliminated if you pulled licenses
from lawyers who failed to live up
to even the loosest definition of
honesty and fair play.
--Put the U.S. Attorney
General's office under the Depart
ment of Agriculture. If the USDA
could do for lawyers what it's
done for farmers, our lawyer pro
blem could be over within the
decade.
Perhaps you think you detect a
flaw in this plan. Wouldn't it
create a shortage of lawyers, you
ask, • which would hmie the effect
of jacking up legal prices?
No, it wouldn't. Remember the
rule: More lawyers, more legal
work. Fewer lawyers, less work.
The legal profession doesn't
respond to the laws of supply and
demand. With lawyers, supply is
demand.