Ewu Is Its Own Worst Enemy Letter Of The Week: From May 22

This is an appeal to people in our community who have been given a great measure of trust. I am speaking to the board of trustees of Eastern Washington University and anyone to whom it listens.

I am a junior at EWU and looking at my future. Recently, one of my professors (a tenured instructor) was upset by something he’d read in a faculty-only publication. EWU’s enrollment has been steadily declining over the past few years, and many people here have made suggestions for ways to alleviate this problem. What had my professor in an outrage was this: The university administration will be cutting low-enrollment courses (too bad for those students), enlarging classes (so we get less personal contact with instructors) and then advertising (spending money we already lack) for this senseless program.

Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, but if I saw an advertisement for a university that had fewer class options and more crowding in the classes left, I’d think about going somewhere else - to a university that seems to care more about its students.

The administration can’t see the logic in retaining smaller classes and reducing tuition in order to attract more students. It ought to pay attention to the professors it has hired to teach advertising methods.

I’m too far along to make it worth my while to transfer, and I enjoy my classes. I will stick it out, then hope and pray when I get out of here that my prospective employer has never even heard of EWU’s way of doing business. Christopher B. Price Cheney

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