Replace administration with a few super seniors

TO THE EDITOR:

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great University when they see the classrooms quads and Pit crowded with beleaguered students in their victory lap having taken as many as one two or even four additional semesters to satisfy their graduation requirements. I think it is agreed by all parties that the issue of overcrowding in light of constant financial constraints is a very real additional grievance and whoever could find a fair cheap and easy method of making these super seniors disappear would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up as a preserver of the University.

Senior Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Bobbi Owen attempted to rectify the situation of overcrowding and lack of financial resources by enacting a measure that will expel all post-fourth-year students beginning in the year 2011. However this new legislation has stirred considerable resentment among the student population and is an incomplete attempt.

I have been assured by a friend of mine at Duke that super seniors because of their extensive experience and familiarity with the registration and graduation process make for excellent administrators of those programs. I have no doubt that our own super seniors can perform similarly.

I do therefore humbly propose that a percentage of super seniors be saved from expulsion and instead used to replace the current undergraduate administration.  Owen's new system of requiring students to petition the University to remain past their eighth semester will undoubtedly require considerable manpower to review the sheer number of petitions. That manpower can come from the previous super-senior classes who faced expulsion themselves.

Further these super seniors could save the University considerable money by replacing the current administrators of the undergraduate system as they would command lower salaries because they do not have college degrees.

I can think of no one objection that will possibly be raised against this proposal save the objections of Owen and her overpaid cohorts.

Timothy Lee

Senior

Exercise & Sport Science