Erin Mastre’s column on Jan. 23 [“Cutting corners hurts students”] provided a good account of some of the trade-offs the university has had to make due to budget and space issues. What Mastre seems to be unaware of is another group of students on campus who have already had facilities taken away from them for a considerable amount of time by the College of Design.

Allow me to explain. In 1990, due to a lack of space in the design building, the university “temporarily” moved design studios into space in the Armory previously used by the ROTC units on campus for training purposes. This caused the ROTC units to be forced to conduct training at less-than-adequate facilities elsewhere on campus. Nineteen years later and this “temporary” inconvenience is still in effect. Mastre’s column mentioned that one of the reasons for the possible closure of the reading room is the College of Design’s limited physical facilities. This lack of physical facilities is what led to the ROTC units losing their training space in the first place. Perhaps Mastre should consider that the university has a variety of disciplines and activities to support and that what is good for one may not be good for another. Compared to design students, the ROTC units have been on the short end of the stick for 19 years, and counting. The Air Force ROTC Dept. alone, a unit of only 70 student cadets, brings in a half million dollars to the university each year. Given this fact, it seems appropriate that it might be time for someone else to share in the belt tightening.

The writer is an Air Force ROTC cadet but the views expressed represent his own and not those of Air Force ROTC or the United States Air Force.

Michael Black

Senior

Political science