Hello Mr. Gerlach:
My name is Rachel Angstadt. I am a freshman at Pennsylvania State University, but I mainly reside in Shillington, PA. I am contacting you because of the recent Penn State budget cuts, which I am sure you are already well aware of.
As I student, I know that in the future these cuts could be very destructive in my education. Since the announcement of this cut I have heard nothing but an ongoing discussion by my peers about this damaging situation. My English teacher who is a grad student has already had her program cut. I want to make it known to you how scared the students really are. We want something to be done to fix this but we can only do so much. My English class decided to address our local representatives with a few ideas so that you can help us to do more.
To begin, I believe that some Penn State campuses should be made smaller or completely cut. If Penn State is losing its funding it should not just directly affect main campus because this deals with the university at a whole. Our University is huge and expands through many parts of Pennsylvania. Getting rid of one or two of the branch campuses would definitely help with the budget cut and also would do little harm because we have so many other options. For example, there are 11 branch campuses on the east side of Main Campus. Penn State berks, Lehigh Valley, and Skukyill are extremely close to one another. Cutting even one of these could help with our budget issue but also still give students in that area a chance to go to a branch campus first.
Another big way to help with this budget crisis would be to simply lower unnecessary spending. Now, this is a very broad and large topic to cover because Penn State spends far too much money on far too many unnecessary things.
We could start with athletics. Although we are both aware that most of the athletics programs are paid for by alumni donations, it would be in the college’s best interests to stop making it obvious that athletics take priority over everything else. If this means not building the new baseball stadium that someone donated money for, I think it needs to be done. This may not really save money but it will instill more security in the students if they do not see work constantly being done on their football stadium while their major gets cut at the same time. I believe it’s a matter of priorities, and right now Penn State needs to begin changing its priorities for the benefit of its students.
Another way the Penn State has been spending money that does not need to be spent is renovations all over campus. I hope you can agree with me that Penn State University Park is a beautiful campus. It is really not necessary to repave all of the streets and sidewalks, build some building on the lawn out front of the Union Building, and constantly have construction trucks doing who knows what in the middle of the streets. This use of money is directly affecting the Penn State students and I believe it needs to be stopped. If this seemingly minor situation was brought to an end, the budget situation would definitely improve and students’ educations would be less effected.
Although these are just a few small ideas to help this crisis that is affecting all of Pennsylvania, I hope that you can use them to help us. I respect you for all of the work and time you are putting into this situation, and I trust you will not ignore the voice of your constituents, especially the students of Penn State University. Thank you very much for you time.
Sincerely,
Rachel Angstadt
Freshman, Penn State
No comments:
Post a Comment