The long ride homeI want to start off by saying that I am a huge Wolfpack supporter. I have season tickets, make donations to the Wolfpack Club, travel to at least one away game a year and I am a student. Unfortunately, this year has been a huge disappointment in football, but nothing has made me more upset than the experience I had in Chapel Hill on Saturday. First of all, either Lee Fowler or Chuck Amato owes me $160 for the four tickets I bought to watch us play Chapel Hill, because the performance they put up Saturday was hardly that of a college football team. The one thing I learned from going to that game is to stop wasting my money on our football team until it can prove it is worth what I pay.What really made me so upset Saturday was not what happened during the game, but what I saw on Highway 54 after the game was over. While sitting in the terrible traffic on Highway 54 waiting to get home from the game, I heard sirens coming up from behind our car. Figuring there was an accident and an ambulance or police car needed to get by, I pulled my car over along with everyone else on the road. Instead of an emergency vehicle rushing to the scene, I saw a police escort followed by 3 or 4 buses with “N.C. State Team Bus” on the side. Apparently our team had to rush home, bypassing traffic, while the rest of us, who showed our loyalty to go to the game even with their lackluster performance, had to wait in traffic. It would seem to me the team is no more special than the rest of us, especially when they lose six in a row. Therefore they should be in traffic with the rest of us. Maybe they could use this time to watch game tape, I am sure their bus has TVs with all the money that people have dumped into the program.

James LambSophomore, Engineering

Walton’s suggestion a waste of timeAs a student of NCSU I am disappointed in the lack of effort found in Matt Walton’s opinion column Friday. The opinion section of the Technician reaches many readers and is therefore a powerful tool. I see the lack of effort in Matt Walton’s column to be an abuse of that power.Walton claims the student voice is not being heard by the administration. The cause that he identifies is that the administration is not listening. The solution that he proposes is that they should walk about campus and listen in what the students are saying.First of all, the proposed solution would be a huge waste of time and I wonder if Matt has even tested his own hypothesis. If one were to walk about campus and listen to what people are talking about, he would most likely hear talk of what activities the students were involved with the night before and what they are planning to do that evening. There would hardly be any insight discovered concerning student’s opinion on issues such as tuition increases or use of funds on certain facilities.Secondly, the proposed cause of the problem is entirely misguided. I argue that the administration is actually quite willing to listen but the problem is that an inadequate number of students are attempting to communicate with them. As a former member of the Student Senate, I know for a fact that any e-mail that a student sends to his or her representative will, at some time or in some way, be addressed. Each student has the ability to be heard.Therefore, the proper solution to the proposed problem of miscommunication would be to inform the students of how their voice can be heard and why it is important that they sacrifice the small amount of time necessary to send their message to the administration.My proposed solution to this problem would be to outline how a student can identify his or her representative and then genuinely compliment a certain known student that is properly sending his or her opinion through the correct lines of communication.Attacking the administration is completely counter-productive. Any communication now received will be tainted by Matt Walton’s sour perception of a normal and decent administration. This negativity will also discourage the students from even attempting to communicate with an administration that is portrayed as stubborn and unsympathetic.As if this wasn’t enough, the three opinions that the author decided to communicate with the administration were also completely baseless. The author seems to have limited his survey to the students he casually comes into contact with, seeing that he cites no methods to his survey, yet portrays these opinions as pervasive among the entire student body. If this is true, this is an inadequate sample that could not possibly be reprehensive of the student body.More consideration is justly deserved when wielding this powerful position. Just because it is an opinion article does not mean that the scientific method should be ignored. I urge this author to take more care in scrutinizing this and future claims, especially the causes and solutions to those claims. Derek GatlinSophomore, Sociology

From the president’s deskI usually refrain from responding to comments in the Viewpoint section of the Technician, but one column and one Campus Forum struck a sour chord with me when I read them this week. 1. Stafford is not the tyrant he is made out to be in Forrest Hinton’s column titled “Rumsfeld Remains at N.C. State.” In fact, Stafford is one of the more cordial and polite administrators I’ve dealt with in my three and a half years at State. He really cares about what he thinks is best for students and works toward that every day. With that said, the key phrase there is “what he thinks.” I doubt there are many students who have butted heads with “old Rummy” more than I. More often Stafford and I disagree on issues but that doesn’t make him a bad person.2. So whose job is it to inform Stafford of what the students really want? The answer is Student Government. It’s our job to advocate on behalf of the more than 31,000 students who attend N.C. State. We are not pseudo-politicians as Alex Ronke implies and the best of us serve our time and move on so that we are constantly refreshing the ideas that are put forth. We are also much more than just a body that negotiates compromises with the administration. SG puts on important programs that students benefit from every day. We represent the student body to the City Council and N.C. General Assembly, and many other activities each year. We are your representatives, continue to hold us accountable!

Will QuickStudent Body President