Founders didn’t look left and right

Founders didn’t look left and right

Last Sunday’s letter writ- er confuses our “Founding Fathers” and what they did or did not do by putting them into contemporary political categories of “Left” and “Right.” The Founders were men of the 18th Century. The vocabulary by which we have political discourse in this nation with respect to “right” or “left” issues (role of government, taxes, civil rights) is far more of an outgrowth of the French Revolution, which occurred after the American Revolution.

The writer cited George Washington as a supporter of a strong central government. That is not an unfair comment, but many Founders (Patrick Henry among them) disagreed with Washington on this issue. The Federalist Papers were written primarily by James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” and Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, in order to secure passage of the Constitution. Within a decade, these two Founders were mortal political enemies.

The Founders disagreed on many issues, not least of them the very need for a Bill of Rights (on which Washington was, at best, lukewarm).

I think we Americans need to think more seriously about the question of why our Constitution has been so successful.

Hannah Ardent, in her work, “On Revolution,” examined the American and the French revolutions. She concluded that the American Revolution was far more successful than the French, but that worldwide it was the French Revolution that was “copied” in country after country. The American Revolution was successful primarily because it addressed the issue of liberty. The French Revolution attempted to address social issues and was doomed to failure as a result.

Richard R. Thompson, Ellwood City, Pa.

Higher education involves sacrifice

The Vindicator seems to enjoy looking for ways to make YSU’s talented and hard-working employees look pampered and greedy.

As an active member of the faculty union, I can assure the readers that YSU employees understand that this region is economically worse-off than many other parts of the country. But reducing the salary and benefits of YSU’s professional staff and faculty would not help anyone, including our students. Just as private businesses do, YSU’s payroll pumps millions into the local economy, including hundreds of thousands we pay in Youngstown income tax. YSU employees are also socially conscious professionals that step up and make major contributions to community charities.

A year or two ago, The Vindicator ran a story on how difficult it was for a local hospital to recruit quality medical staff when they have job opportunities in other communities for at least as much, if not significantly more, money. Does anyone really think it’s any different when YSU tries to recruit and maintain quality faculty and other professionals?

The Vindicator (and the governor-elect) imply that all of higher-education has the lower workloads that the more famous schools offer. At YSU, however, we have relatively high workloads, and our regular faculty — not graduate assistants as at those “elite” schools — do most teaching, even at the undergraduate level.

Editorials in The Vindicator have implied that YSU employees do not understand or care about YSU or our students. This could not be further from the truth. YSU is our professional home. We genuinely love it, contribute generously to YSU’s fund raising and scholarships, and volunteer our time to advise student groups and to help manage special projects for the university.

We understand what it’s like to struggle to pay tuition and to have to borrow money and/or to have to work while studying for a degree. After graduating with our bachelors’ degrees, often with significant debts, we paid more tuition, borrowed more money, and postponed families and many of life’s comforts for even more years to earn post-graduate degrees. We can appreciate the investment and sacrifice required because we experienced it.

When I began my career at YSU, the state covered 67 percent of the budget; now it’s approximately 30 percent (and may soon be even less). If Ohio taxpayers refuse to adequately support universities, who else but students are left to pay for their education? YSU’s faculty and staff do not like to see tuition increases, but, having paid our own tuition — several times — should we now have to subsidize the tuition of current students by sacrificing our families’ futures? No one, least of all our students, would benefit from having YSU staffed by demoralized or marginally qualified faculty and staff.

Stanley Guzell, Poland

The writer is chief negotiator for YSU-OEA.

An unfortunate choice of words

Apparently it’s not enough for Bertram de Souza to trash YSU employees in his columns. Now he includes students.

In his Dec. 12 column, he referred to YSU students as “academic shlubs.” Ironically, the very next day, The Vindicator published a story about YSU’s Fall Commencement at which 141 students graduated cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude.

I have worked with YSU students for the past 23 years, and I have seen them graduate and land excellent jobs or continue their studies in graduate programs. Our students are a lot more talented than what Mr. de Souza would have his readers believe. His choice of words was very unfortunate and very unfair.

Robert A. Hogue, Youngstown

The writer is an associate professor of computer science & information systems at YSU.

It isn’t all about radio

I think that several of the adults quoted in the Dec. 8 article about Struthers High’s radio class are missing the point. Only the students in the article seemed to get it.

WKTL and the associated radio class and on-air experience aren’t about cranking out radio station employees. It’s not a trade school. I knew that 30-plus years ago when I spun records (remember those), and broadcast basketball games.

I never planned to pursue a radio career, although I know several WKTL alumni who did reach a good deal of success in TV, which is not a dying industry by the way . Even though I didn’t plan to go into radio, I knew even then that speaking off the cuff to an audience was an important life skill and that radio class and WKTL was the best place in all of northeast Ohio for a skinny 16-year-old to learn.

Think about it. If you are a lawyer or a teacher or a salesman or a trainer at a worksite you need to be able to speak coherently without a script. There is no better way that the current and future students of Struthers High School can learn how to communicate with an audience than through WKTL’s on- air experience.

This doesn’t even address the interviewing skills that could or should be taught in radio class and through real life experience like sending the students out into the Struthers community with a simple recorder to interview elected officials, business owners, and everyday people at events. Millions of jobs require the ability to interview clients, prospective employees and the general public.

I’d ask Superintendent Rostan and the Struthers school system not to be short sighted and toss out WKTL and the radio class as simply a trade school for a dying industry. It was never about that. It has always been the area’s best formative training ground for tomorrow’s great communicators, whether they be on television, or in the courtroom, the classroom, the corporate boardroom, or even a small self owned shop trying make a sale.

Bill Adams, Austintown