PERSPECTIVES
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Editor: Kristina Bui letters@wildcat.arizona.edu (520) 621-7579
TWITTER.COM/WILDCATOPINIONS
Editorial Pass/Fail The Arizona Daily Wildcat puts the issues to the test. Do they make the grade?
We look forward to our free parking spaces
Congratulations to Morgan Abraham, who was announced as the winner in ASUA’s special senatorial election at the end of last week. We spend a lot of time dissecting the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, questioning its effectiveness and the amount of money it pours into concerts. The platform that Abraham ran on didn’t escape our notice either. Free parking at the Student Recreation Center wasn’t really at the top of (or anywhere on) our list of concerns facing UA students and we’re still not sure moving Spring Fling back to campus is a feasible option considering its size and attendance. But we are willing to admit that being a student leader — one truly representative of the more than 30,000 undergraduates on campus — requires ambition and motivation. For now, Abraham and ASUA get an incomplete. We’ll keep watching to see what happens next.
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Finger-pointing in ASA a slow-motion implosion
Speaking of student leadership, how about that Arizona Students’ Association? After the resignation of five ASA directors — all from ASU — and an investigative report by the Goldwater Institute, current and former members of ASA appear to be caught up in a lot of finger-pointing. UA student leaders, namely ASUA President Katy Murray, have repeatedly stood by the nonprofit organization, despite the allegations leveled against it. ASA has been accused of violating its bylaws and of improper spending. Former ASA members from ASU have said they’ve been threatened with legal action. With the elections fast approaching, now is hardly the time for an organization dedicated to advocating for higher education to implode. We’re pretty sure that everyone will just look for somewhere else to dump the blame, but even so, ASA gets a fail. An organization that claims to represent students to the state Legislature can’t afford to engage in a battle of he said, she said.
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Limiting access creates hurdles for journalists
Ithaca College issued a new media policy last month that routes all student journalists’ requests for interviews with administrators through the college’s media relations office. Now, instead of going directly to the source, Ithaca’s students will have to ask media relations to facilitate an interview. According to Dave Maley, associate director of media relations, in an interview with the school’s student newspaper, the new requirements were not written to limit media access. Instead, Maley says, the policy will better ensure the sources are the most appropriate to the article and the interviews will be better facilitated. This last claim cements a fail for Ithaca College’s new policy. Though we do not abide by any particular policy regarding how to submit interview requests, Wildcat staff members have also sometimes had to jump through bureaucratic hoops to get to administrators. While such a policy is by no means a limitation on free speech, it does limit access. The constant dependence on a middle man only slows down the delivery of information.
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— Editorials are determined by the Arizona Daily Wildcat editorial board and written by one of its members. They are Bethany Barnes, Kristina Bui, Jason Krell and Alex Williams. They can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu or on Twitter via @WildcatOpinions.
True grit: ‘Soft’ skills paint fuller picture of students And yet the idea of factoring “noncognitive skills” into the college admissions process should be silly. Something so intangible is too subjective, too soft, to evaluate in people, critics argue. But at the National Association for College Kristina Bui Admission Counseling’s annual meeting, held Arizona Daily Wildcat this weekend, experts seriously discussed considering grit in the admissions process. ou can learn a lot about yourself when Universities like Tufts and DePaul already do, you’re faced with a challenge. It turns according to the Chronicle of Higher Educaout college admissions officers can learn tion. a lot too. Developed by Angela Duckworth, an asThe idea that SAT scores and high school sistant professor of psychology at the Univergrade point averages aren’t enough to create sity of Pennsylvania, the “Grit Scale” exama complete picture of a college applicant is ines diligence and the person’s approach to nothing new. These things might measure inobstacles using their responses to statements telligence, as do IQ tests, but it’s still important like, “I have overcome setbacks to conquer an to look at an applicant’s noncognitive skills: important challenge” and “Setbacks discourtheir grittiness. age me.” In psychology, grit is a person’s passion for The flaw, of course, is that the Grit Scale a long-term goal, a motivation that enables the expects people to be accurate observers of individual to overcome challenges in order to themselves, and how they perceive their own achieve that goal. Gritty people are resilient, behavior may be different from how others determined and ambitious. They have high perceive them. But Duckworth issued tests like endurance and backbone. Grit. this in several studies, and, across six studies, Grit can be used to explain why many top found that highly successful people tended to CEOs graduate from state schools instead of score higher on the scale. Ivy League universities, or why some soldiers Grittier West Point cadets were more in the U.S. military handle post-combat psylikely to stay after their first summer. Grittier chological trauma differently from others. spelling-bee participants tended to out-spell
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Online Comments
Your views In response to “Politically charged video raises doubts about Arizona Students’ Association” (by Jason Krell, Oct. 2) It’s funny that people get up in arms over Chik-Fil-A, yet the ASA is allowed to be as partisan as it wants. I’m not a Democrat, but I’ll still get upset when Democrats are inaccurately portrayed or when a group that claims to be non-partisan clearly favors even my own political leanings. The video is ambiguous, but you have to be pretty desensitized to not notice its subtle slant. The hilarious part though is there is not current candidate between the two parties that is anti-war, anti-bailout, and pro-marijuana....So the video just illustrates the lack of variety in the choices we have. — Steven Sleight
their less determined competitors. Grittier undergraduate students tended to have higher GPAs than their peers. Students who have grit, Duckworth said in the Chronicle’s article, “are not always as smart as less gritty individuals, but they actually perform beautifully in highly challenging situations where dropout is likely.” IQ may not be enough to measure likelihood of high achievement, Duckworth’s research argues. Grit may not be tied to intelligence at all — just look at students with high GPAs but little direction. Duckworth warned against assuming that noncognitive measures outweigh cognitive factors. “It’s not necessarily that IQ doesn’t matter,” she said, “but I think the promising message for students is that we can all work harder, or at least most of us can.” There isn’t any way to know if including grit in the college admissions process would change retention and graduation rates, but it does offer more insight into college applicants. When it comes down to the wire, a person has to be more than a resume or an SAT score. — Kristina Bui is the editor-in-chief for the Arizona Daily Wildcat. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu or on Twitter via @kbui1.
our future alumni who will have lower GPAs than graduates of other schools who they are competing with for jobs in the work force. I agree that the student to teacher ratio could and should be improved upon. However, I think reaching 40,000 students is actually something to be proud about. We’re a public university, and despite rising tuition costs, our goal is to make college accessible & affordable. On one hand, it’s nice to have lower rates of admission to make us seem prestigious and that we only allow the best of the best... but at the end of the day, that’s not our goal. We’re not Harvard. Public institutions can and should remain a place that does education a large amount of people. It kind of reminds me of Noam Chomsky’s lecture this spring entitled “An Education for Whom & for What?” in which he addresses only the privileged subsets of Americans receiving education historically. Public education should strive to be a place that counteracts that, and for that reason I believe having a larger enrollment is a good thing. — Kemi
In response to “Low ranking education system, high unemployment rates earn Tucson sixth-poorest in nation” (by Good article holding ASA accountable for subtle (or not so subtle) Stephanie Casanova, Oct. 4): messaging. If I understand this article correctly, the key to revitalizing the — AJ economy is by sending illegal immigrants to higher education? (They’ll probably classify as in-state and therefore get up to $15,000 In response to “Class sizes matter in college enrollment” (by of their tuition funded by the state) Or maybe I was wrong and it Savannah Martin, Oct. 3): means that the key to revitalizing the economy lies in just accepting I love your work Savannah, but I’m going to have to disagree with uncontrolled immigration (the author admits that lack of control you on a few points. in immigration is damaging the economy) instead of restricting The values of A’s & B’s in higher education have been greatly diminished since the Vietnam War. Professors across the board raised immigration more carefully to make sure that it stimulates our economy instead of damaging it. the grades they were handing out to students, because if they were Okay, maybe I don’t understand this article. still in college (with high grades, I believe) they were more likely to — Cody be exempt/deferred from the draft. In the post war, grades were never deflated. Is it really a surprise that a large city with a terrible public Don’t get me wrong, grades have been continually inflated since education program, no core industry, and droves of unskilled then, but I think it’s a complex issue. I mean, look at the statistic immigrants is so poor? you provided about private school handing out more A’s & B’s; if our — Javier institution decides to take a stand against inflation, we’re hurting
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Daily Wildcat staff editorials represent the official opinion of the Daily Wildcat staff, which is determined at staff editorial meetings. Columns, cartoons, online comments and letters to the editors represent the opinion of their author and do not represent the opinion of the Daily Wildcat.
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