Give it some time
Let me begin with some business terminology, the lingo common to both University administrators and corporate donors who instruct them. The University’s decision to join the WRC was an investment. Like all investments, time and careful guidance are necessary for fruition. Sometimes years are necessary before any profit or benefit can be acquired.
Those who advocated for WRC membership were very clear and outspoken on the amount of time needed for the WRC to become effective. This is why a five-year membership was requested.
University administrators should be well aware of the long-term nature of projects involving large social change. A faculty, staff, student and administrative team has been working to increase diversity on campus for more than a year now without success. The Code of Conduct Committee, which voted unanimously to adopt the WRC, took more than a year to reach a decision. These tasks are nothing compared to that of global networking between human rights groups and monitoring corporations which do not want to be monitored.
President Frohnmayer’s four issues are his alone. No democratic body at the University has ever voted for them to be enacted. Even then, one of his issues, that of university representation, has already been addressed at the WRC meeting. That seems like rather quick work to me.
In the Register-Guard article (July 21), University Professor Lynn Kahle referred to the WRC as being in an infant state. No argument here. The question is: Should we nurture this infant or abandon it?

Chad Sullivan

Music

Smoking ban an

infringement on rights
First, I’d like to say that I am not a smoker, but the arguments for the proposed ban on smoking in bars are ridiculous.
The argument that second-hand smoke is bad and no one should be subjected to it is moot. Whether second-hand smoke is harmful is still debated, but even if it (probably) is, no one is forced to enter these establishments. Even the employees at the bars could find other jobs in this time of record employment. Besides, they had to know people smoked there when they turned in their application.
The argument that people will spend more in a non-smoking bar does not stand up either. If it did, there would be no need to enact a ban — the bars would do it voluntarily.
The biggest argument against this ban should be that these bars are private businesses open to adults, and it should be left to the proprietors to decide what legal activities go on inside. Taking away the freedoms of people to do what is legal because a group just doesn’t like it is un-American.

Dustin Preuitt

Computer and

Information Science