On a recent visit to Iowa State, I learned that plans are underway to install a McDonald’s fast food franchise in the Hub on central campus.

I also learned that students and staff who quite reasonably oppose this course of action are being systematically discounted or ignored by ISU officials.

For my part, I can say that the very idea of installing a mercenary franchise in the heart of ISU stinks to high heaven.

It is a scheme which is being perpetrated in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong way. It looks like a sellout, and it will provoke a scandal.

I think that ISU students, faculty and alumni alike have already had more than enough of the commercialization of university life.

Every person who cares about the future of the integrity of higher education should speak out now and reject McDonald’s or any other franchise at the center of ISU.

Donald H. McNeil

ISU EE 1965

Montoursville, PA