By Chris Reid
Editors, the Gauntlet,
Re: "U of C students get million dollar tuition break,"
The Calgary Herald, Mar. 27, 1999,
As a U of C (ash) student who stood in the cold for over five hours on Friday morning to protest 10 years of maximum tuition hikes, I was appalled by the way our protest and its outcome were portrayed in the media. I could not believe my eyes when I looked at The Herald to see the headline, "U of C students get million dollar tuition break." This headline was blatantly misleading.
U of C students did not win a million dollars off their tuition costs, but rather their tuition was raised by $4 million. In fact, our protest did not yield anything that could be considered positive, other than the fact that we were able, if only for a short period, to unite the majority of students of the so-called "Quiet-U" to fight for a common cause. We camped out on campus for days, we had all the necessary facts to defend our cause, we united hundreds of students to fight against rising tuition and student poverty, but for what? To get tuition raised again? To have the media portray us as greedy, designer clothes-wearing punks who have now forced the university to scrape together the $1.25 million shortfall? The fact is the university will not have to cut back on programs, because they already have a $76 million surplus. This means Terry White will have a million dollars less to add to his existing surplus.
Chris Reid