LETTER: Blackhawks are too loud

Editor,

This letter is in response to a letter that appeared in the Statesman on Wednesday, Sept. 15, criticizing HASS administration’s complaint about Blackhawk helicopters landing on the Quad. While the author’s enthusiasm about the military service and the ROTC is laudable, his criticism against HASS administration complaining about the helicopters is misguided.

The first and most important responsibility of a university is to provide quality education possible so that students can benefit and become productive members of society. It is not to provide a venue for military recruitment. The suggestion that the instructors should thus bear the noise for several hours during the semester is imprudent. Instructors need to have classroom where it is controlled and focused, so that a coherent lecture/discussion can take place without distractions such as a helicopter landing near the classroom. It is difficult enough for instructors to keep the attention of the MTV generation college student. While the recruiting stunt with the helicopter is ‘cool’, it is visually and audibly distracting for an instructor and students.

Both students and the state legislature (i.e. the Utah tax payer) pay a lot of good money to run the university to, presumably, provide the best higher education possible. What if you pay good money at a movie theatre to a see a flick, and then military recruiters come in to do their recruiting bit in the name of national security and the armed forces? Wouldn’t you feel ripped off? In case a student has forgotten, you (or your parents) did pay money to send you to school. Would you want to tell your parents that class was canceled, because of too much noise outside? The ROTC ought to consider the HASS administration complaint and work the logistics so that it does not impede on quality education.

Robert Igarashi