An open letter to Martin Jischke:

McDonald’s on central campus.

It seems to me this is exactly what ISU needs as its new example of excellence.

Let us embrace corporate America, let us embrace “big business,” let the term “public institution,’ be only that in name.

What better place, what better site to locate the brightest, most glaringly acidic symbol of mass consumerism and a “throw-away society,” than outside your window.

What will you try and sell me tomorrow? Beer, soft drinks, potato chips perhaps? Will ISU have its own official candy bar next? It apparently has an official fast food vendor. Very good, Mr. President, very ironic, and sadly, very apt.

When I entered ISU, I was under the impression that this was primarily an academic institution.

While it of course is, I have found academic ideals too often suborned to the ‘needs’ of fundraising and bureaucratic politics. Vast amounts of money are spent on remodeling offices and buildings, but not enough to provide funds for enough class sections, or even providing for classrooms in newly remodeled buildings. It is a poor comment on an institution’s academics when a university has buildings which are nothing more than office blocks – no classrooms, no laboratories; very little learning.

A university is a place for teaching and research. Ideally, it should be designed and operated for the benefit of the faculty and students, not the engrossment of the Alumni Association, and the aggrandizement of the administration. Bringing McDonald’s to campus is a sell out. As I work at my McEducation, again, sadly, I realize that it is what I have come to expect.

Ed Krafsur

Junior

LAS

Ed Krafsur Junior, LAS 3404 Coy, #4 Ames la, 50014 evening ph. 292-4387