ISG made difference

To the editor:

I would like to clear up some points of purposeful misinformation about which Robert Damrau wrote in his letter to the editor dated April 12. To be clear, as hard as it may be for Damrau to credit Illinois Student Government, ISG did cease the progress of a parental notification policy, as Andrew Hammill correctly stated in his column dated April 10. Damrau referenced a policy termed "Parental Involvement," currently on the agenda for this month's UC Senate meeting.

As Damrau well knows, parental involvement is a reaffirmation of pre-existing guidelines, by which the dean of students already operates. A parental involvement policy will be a safety measure, only to be enacted in extreme circumstances, and only when there exists an emergent threat to the health or safety of a student.

By contrast, the parental notification policy ISG successfully stopped would have been a disciplinary mechanism, calling mommy and daddy every time junior had a beer. The purpose of parental involvement is twofold: chiefly, to promote and maintain a safe and responsible college environment, and secondarily, so people like Bob Damrau, who insist on prying into the private lives and records of students, will feel content that a policy, more by title than by substance, is coded.

Thus, instead of Damrau's threatening assertions, all students should take comfort that - unless they are lying on their death beds - their parents will be unaware of their social activities here at the U of I.

Jeff Shapiro
junior in LAS


We want a voice, that's all

To the editor:

The Daily Illini has recently printed some comments by graduate students opposed to graduate employee unionization. As a member of the GEO, I (of course) disagree with them, and feel they are often seriously misinformed about the facts of the matter. At the same time, I am glad to see there is a public debate beginning on the issue. However, this debate is meaningless if we do not have the right to choose union representation for ourselves. This is what the GEO seeks. We do not want money, we want a voice. Only when we have the right to choose can we have a serious debate among graduate employees.

When that debate begins, as I am sure it will, I hope opponents of the GEO will look beyond their personal material interests and consider the entire University community. I did not join the GEO to get rich. I joined the GEO because I believe in making the University of Illinois the best university it can be, and because I believe that people working together are stronger than people working alone.

I joined the GEO because even if I am happy with my lot, there are others who aren't, and they need all of us to stand together to help them. I joined the GEO because I do not believe graduate employees can be exploited simply because their predecessors were. I joined the GEO because a handful of unelected, unresponsive and unaccountable administrators cannot and will not allow us that voice, unless and until we make it clear that they oppose the will of the University community.

By all means let us debate. But let us not forget that this debate is about far more then money. It is about democracy.

Dave Kamper
graduate student

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