I am writing in response to Professor Hays’ letter in the Feb. 8 edition of The Post.
From my perspective, as a former non-scholarship, intercollegiate athlete at Ohio University, if Professor Hays believes, as he says, in the value of ICA, I’d hate to see his comments if he was an ICA detractor.
From what I’ve read in The Post, one of the primary criticisms of ICA at OU is that the program loses money and that a portion of that loss is made up from student fees.
If losing money is now going to be the benchmark by which the value of a program or curriculum is measured, then, in fairness, that same standard must be applied to all academic and cultural programs and curriculums at OU.
I wonder, for example, if there are enough students taking “classics and world religions” or similar classes — excluding, of course, students who are forced to take these classes merely to satisfy a graduation requirement — to justify their expense.
I also wonder how many, if any, cultural programs at OU break even financially.
As far as violating, as Professor Hays says, “principals of fairness and justice,” the last time I looked, no one is forced to attend or work at OU. If the small number of students — 5 percent total I believe — who took issue with how ICA is handled at OU are not happy there, they are free to transfer to another school, including an institution with no ICA. However, before they do, they better do some research because I believe they’ll find similar situations exist at a number of large universities.
Kenneth Job is an Ohio University alumnus.
