Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

In recent weeks, Concordia has decided to change its logo to better reflect the impression that people have of our university. Lucky for us, we now have the honour of sporting a school crest worthy of the Starship Enterprise. On Jan. 19, Marcel Proulx, who headed the university-funded research of $30,000, was quoted in The Montreal Gazette as saying that Concordia ” was perceived as a very dynamic, innovating and daring university, [.] and what differentiates it more than anything is that it is down to Earth, approachable and friendly.” Down to Earth? Oh yes, that’s the impression we’ll send to prospective students, especially with a logo closely resembling that of an upside down Star Trek communication badge. I can just picture Dr. Claude Lajeunesse welcoming new students in the fall dressed as Captain Kirk. So does the new and ‘improved’ (excuse my sarcasm) logo really echo our open, diversified, and innovative university? The Concordian’s recent online poll, which asks people whether they like the university’s new logo, shows the number of those who answered ‘no’ to be increasing everyday-having already reached the 75 per cent mark. If they thought we were in an identity crisis before, imagine when students start seeing two different Concordia logos spread out across the various buildings on both campuses.

Erica Delisle


Dear Editor,

Morgan Steiker does a good job of weighing the potential benefits of killing the current freeze on University tuition rates in Quebec (Killing the Freeze!), but in the process, he conflates an individual’s ability to pay for his or her education with a person’s willingness to achieve higher learning.
Steiker is convinced that to achieve a greater level of education, students must “invest,” by which he means “with cold hard cash.” But what about the investment of a person’s time and energy in achieving higher education? Why should students be judged by the wealth of their parents rather than their math scores? Steiker also points out that having a degree from Harvard is enough to satisfy all doubts of a person’s intelligence, and that’s why they can charge enormous fees. Once again, wealth and money are conflated with the acquisition of higher learning. Even a C-student at Yale, like current President George W. Bush, can claim to have achieved greater things than someone who was forced to settle with what was affordable.
Rather than a flat increase in tuition rates for all students, why not reward those students who do well with a rebate on some of those annoying ancillary fees that get dumped on us every year? Why don’t we call the fees a “deposit” instead, which will be returned to us at the end of a successful term. Students who underperform, or fail any of their classes will only receive some of their money back, while those who work hard will get back even more. This way, schools will get the extra money they need to improve their facilities and hire more staff members, while students will once again be judged on the effort they put into their own education. And if the school ends up giving back too much money, at least we’ll know it was because the school had succeeded in producing bright and intelligent students.

Christopher Olson

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