Letters

Letters to the Editor

Smart funding

Editor:

How would you like registration and books paid for? That’s the
idea

behind the new Scholarship Resource Center. If run well, it has
the

potential to reduce financial strain on students. This explains
why all 13

student government officers support the program. Unfortunately,
there seems

to be some confusion over this fact.

To set the record straight, the Scholarship Resource Center will
go

through. Originally, there was no money for it and students were
expected

to finance the entire program. Students balked at the idea by
voting down a

referendum which would have raised their fees slightly to pay
for the

center. Turns out, the students were probably right.

Where there was no money before, certain administrators have
now

generously agreed to put up partial funding for the center.
They,

hopefully, agree, as most of this year’s Student’s First
officers do, that

a Scholarship Resource Center not only benefits students, but
benefits UCLA

as a whole. Therefore, it’s a good idea for the administration
and students

to fund the center.

The center will be the only one of its kind in the UC system and
could

serve as a model for others to follow. Now, in the spirit of
cooperation,

the administration will contribute $80,000 for the center, and
students,

through their Student Fee Advisory Committee, will also
contribute

$80,000.

While in the past Student’s First officers may have opposed the
program

because other leaders wanted students to pay for it solely, now
they

support the center. No one doubts such services are needed for
financially

overburdened students. But, when it comes to spending large sums
of student

fees, we must be smart and negotiate smartly, or students could
end up

paying more than they bargained for.

Dan Ryu

Fifth-year

Communications

Here’s to the end of an era

Editor:

As the Terry Donahue era in UCLA football ends, I am left with
the same

question that bothered me through all but the first few of those
years: How

could a coach with that record of success and that personal
identification

with the university generate as little emotional support from
the alumni as

he appeared to do? I had occasion to do some archival research
on the

Florida State campus one fall early in Bobby Bowden’s tenure
there, and

wondered why Donahue had never gotten the personal enthusiasm
that Bowden

had already achieved.

My principal memory of the Donahue era is not any of Donahue’s
victories

on the field, but rather a presentation he made to the
Legislative Assembly

of the University Senate in opposition to a proposal of some
faculty

members for UCLA to adopt a policy of freshman ineligibility,
even though

the NCAA as a whole had rejected the idea. Donahue gave a
low-keyed,

unemotional, but entirely convincing analysis of the consequence
on

recruiting by UCLA coaches if the policy were adopted
unilaterally. I had

the strong impression from his speech that this was a man who
belonged in a

major intellectual institution – and I have no illusions that
many football

coaches would have given me the same feelings.

Let us recognize that the Donahue years were one of the glory
periods of

UCLA athletics, and wish him well in his future endeavors.

George Hilton

Professor Emeritus

Economics