I must remonstrate to Jessica Grozdanich's misguided, though well-intentioned letter. It is truly disheartening that this university is unable to reward instructors of Dr. Simmon's and David Laderman's caliber. It is sad that the cinema department lacks the funds to offer a vast spectrum of classes to ANY student, film major or not.
Grozdanich writes that she has "witnessed the most incredible incompetence and ill treatment toward the students." If this "incompetence" arises from Grozdanich's inability to obtain every single class she so desires, join the club. Every cinema major knows too well the frustrations of crashing classes, vying for a few select positions amidst several other voracious individuals who are just as enthusiastic about film.
The fact that California is now the only state that spends more money on prisons than on higher education doesn't leave a lot of latitude for the cinema department.
As a result, funds and grants are cut, leaving the cinema department the difficult task of making that money stretch. When funds prove incapable of being elasticized, certain classes have to be cut, and, as Grozdanich points out, certain instructors have to be denied full-time positions.
But at least we still have a cinema department. It's often tough to get classes or to get a degree within four years, but I'm amazed how flexible the cinema department is with the funds they are utilizing. This semester offered the students a good 60 classes to choose from -- overcrowded and often hard to negotiate for -- but at least those classes were offered.
Education has nothing to do with "politically correct agendas" or "Nazi propaganda tactics" but has everything to do with money. It's ludicrous to single out the "liberal left" as the harbingers of Nazism or the heartless bastards who want to bring an end to education, particularly when the conservative elite in Congress are chopping up funding of the arts and education as we speak with their Contract With America.
If you really want do so something about it, write a clear and coherent letter to your Congressman, not a rambling and confused piece of propaganda in this newspaper.