Mar. 13, 2005 - 17:17 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

From the Western Slope

Ed Quillen of Salida, Colorado, a place over on the western slope of the Rockies is a former newspaper editor who has a column in The Denver Post on Thursdays and Sundays. He has a sort of "Shoot From The Lip," way of saying things but is backed up by his commonsense knowledge I believe. I admire what he says today, In Full:

Try two quick fixes at CU

"Betsy Hoffman surprised absolutely no one by resigning last week as president of the University of Colorado. Her successor will face the same problems, of course, but there's some truth in the saying "a new broom sweeps clean." And if the new broom is willing to sweep, at least two of the major problems at our state's flagship university could be solved quickly."

"For starters, the new president should eliminate the football program. Without it, there aren't recruiting scandals that involve minors, alcohol, sex and drugs. Without football, no football camp-cash boxes. NO football, no players subject to rape allegations. NO football, no assistant coaches to be accused of having sex with student trainers."

"But doesn't a big-time university need a big-time football program ? The University of Chicago enjoys a good reputation, and it hasn't fielded a football team since 1939."

"There's the argument that football offers educational opportunities. There's also the fact that overall, 64 percent of CU students graduate withing six years of starting college. But only 44 percent of football players do."

"The football program is a tremendous drain on the university's reputation and management resources -- the time spent coping with scandals is time that the administration can't spend lobbying the legislature for money, recruiting talented faculty or improving the library.

Colorado's college football fans would hardly be deprived, for Colorado State University and Air Force would still play Division 1 football along the front range, along with Wyoming in nearby Laramie."

"There's also the "Ward Churchill Problem," which could quickly be solved by eliminating the entire ethnic studies department. It's hardly a necessity, since the university managed to operate until 1993 without one."

"It's misnamed, because its focus is on "Afro-American studies, American Indian studies, Asian American studies, Chicano/a studies," where students gain substantive knowledge and expertise in one of the four specific racial/ethnic fields." according to the department's website."

"Other ethnic groups in Colorado history -- the Irish miners of Leadville, the Italian quarry workers of Salida, the Slavs of the steel mills in Pueblo, the Jews trying to farm in 1882 near Cotopaxi, the Volga-deutsch of Weld County, the Balkan coal miners slain at Ludlow, to name a few -- are apparently unworthy of study, or even mention, at CU these days."

"So the ethnic studies department does not bother to study more than four ethnic groups, which is made clear in a required class, Foundations of Ethnic Studies. The catalog says this course applies analytic perspectives, especially racial formation theory, to the experiences of the four principle (sic) peoples of color in the United States."

" The catalog listing does not explain why it sounds racist, at least to my ears, to be making assumptions based on skin color. Nor does it explain why, as they imply, a Seminole and a Paiute should be grouped together culturally, but Caucasian and Native Americans should not -- even if they are married."

"But the program does "empower students of color to move beyond being objects of study toward being subjects of their own social realities, with voices of their own." I have no idea what "being subjects of their own social realities" means, but I do know that Bill Hosokawa once edited these pages, and spoke with a voice of his own. And that Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison offer voices of their own, as do Rudolfo Anaya and N. Scott Momaday, and they managed to do so before there were ethnic studies programs."

"Are the issues of "race, sex and class" worthy of study ? Certainly -- but in literature classes and sociology classes and history classes, classes that a wide variety of students take, rather than just ethnic-studies majors."

"So CU's next president ought to terminate that department, as well as the football team. That won't necessarily get more money from the legislature, or change the "party school" image, but it would be a good start on building a better University Of Colorado."

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I quite agree with Ed Quillen, and remember Denver University tearing down the foot ball stadium in 1960 and not fielding a football team thereafter. Then with the Broncos coming into Denver, the audience slackened even more I think. To my mind and from what I read CU has made progress for mankind in many ways, including their Nobel prizewinners up there, the University Hospital now a-building at Fitzsimons toward its final move from the cramped campus in mid-town Denver.

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That hospital by the way according to Bob Reuteman Business Editor of the Rocky Mountain News said in his column of March 12th is Betsy Hoffman's expertise at work. He said, in part:

"Hoffman has had some notable successes as well. Let me remind you why she ended up running the university system in the summer of 2000. I wrote a column at the time that began, "To fully understand why Elizabeth Hoffman was named the sole finalist last week for the University Of Colorado presidency, you need to drive out East Colfax Avenue to Ursula Street and turn left."

"In other words, Hoffman was brought here to get CU's Fitzsimons campus up and running, and she made great strides. She came from the University of Illinois-Chicago, where she ran one of the nation's largest health science centers, accounting for two-thirds of that school's budget. CU's regents foresaw the necessity of a new Health Sciences Centre at Fitzsimons, fully linked to an adjacent hospital complex and bioscience park to commercialize professors' medical research. The regents foresaw the need for a massive new revenue engine to supplant dwindling state support that now stands at about 7 percent of its annual budget."

"A few weeks after that column appeared, I ran into then-regent Chairman Pete Steinhauser, who told me I was on the money. thay's why Hoffman was brought here. She got the ball rolling, and she deserves great credit for it. It is the most important thing she did. Beyond that, draw your own conclusions."

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So in all the uproar recently apparently forgotten in the claims and counterclaims is that CU as a university has made huge advances in science, economics and engineering. I am with Ed Quillen, drop the football and the quasi "ethnic" propagandic department. Let CU once again be a University for us Coloradans to be proud of for its accomplishments and future great things. Let those young folks who want to party and pay the tuition, partay ! ON THEIR DAMN OWN and fail to become educated on their own too.

So the bewhiskered ED Quillen talks great sense From The Western Slope . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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