LETTERS

Last week’s editorial on parking generated many responses:

To the Editor:

Your editorial on the parking situation on campus (Dude, where’s my car? Feb. 15-22) struck home with me, particularly the description of “supervised parking” in Temple lots. I paid for unlimited parking in a Temple lot with a posted guard at all hours, imagining it safer than parking on the street. Several weeks ago, however, I got a flat tire in the lot and spent over an hour changing it with no offer of assistance from the night guard. A week later I saw a truck in the lot with its rear window smashed in and glass covering the ground. To this day, the glass has still not been cleaned up. If this is what happens to student property in a constantly supervised lot, I hate to think of what could happen to the students.

A Temple Commuter
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To the Editor:

This memo is sent in response to the Editorial Board’s column that appeared in the 2/22/01 issue of the Temple News (“Dude, Where’s my car?”).

We acknowledge that the University does not have enough parking available to accommodate every student and all of our employees. However, we are pleased to report that, for every parker who has requested parking on a Temple University parking area, both in the Fall and the Spring, we have been able to accommodate everyone’s request.

All student parkers, who have registered for parking at Main Campus, have obtained parking, many of them conveniently located to their classrooms. Six very large surface parking areas and garages accommodate our student parkers and, from these areas, we have almost 850 parking spaces that are still available for use. Any student is welcome to apply for an assignment to any of our parking areas that has space still available.

Any student who lives on campus and has requested guaranteed access overnight parking has been assigned to one of these areas. No overnight parker’s request has been denied at any time, either in the Fall or the Spring.

We appreciate the fact that the Editorial Board has acknowledged that our parking rates are very competitive. We work hard to keep these rates low for both students and employees. Currently, the evening debit card parking rate is as low as $1.66 to enter a parking area, as opposed to the daytime rate of $3.33; and guaranteed access costs only $2.75, if you drive to campus every day.

For those students who need parking after 3PM, we generally have twice as much space available in the evening, as compared to the daytime.

Please help us to dispel the myth that we do not have additional safe, convenient and affordable parking. We are ready to serve and assign both students and employees to convenient University parking areas and garages that have available parking waiting for them during the day and in the evening.

Parking Services is ready to serve any students looking for parking in our garages or surface parking areas.

If you need any additional information, please let me know.

James M. Cirillo,
Director, Office of Parking Services
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Dear Editor:

I read your editorial on the parking situation on campus with interest.
Temple is notorious as a commuter school, yet parking here is expensive and unsafe. The few parking lots available to students are poorly supervised and maintained. While construction problems may be a temporary inconvenience, I have always had the impression that Temple’s parking authorities are more concerned with making money than making the university convenient and safe for its student drivers. Your editorial revealed the problems with Temple’s parking — now the question is, will the university do anything about it?

Joe Smith
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Dear Editor:

One problem I did not see addressed in your editorial on parking is the lack of parking for student guests or visitors. Unlimited access and overnight lots are not available to non-Temple students. Even students who pay the parking fees may not use their ID cards for guests. Other colleges and universities have ample (an (sic) often free!) space for guest parking. Students are allowed to have overnight guests, so why should their visitors have to park in unsafe areas and leave their vehicles open to theft and vandalism?

J.P.
Junior, Temple Student
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Response to Gave’s Soapbox:

Dear Editor:

I’ve endured Gavriel Rubin’s column since the start of the semester, and now the editors of the Temple News have allowed him to print something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Spring-loaded each week with plenty of knee-jerk liberal rhetoric, incoherent Republican bashing, and his own brand of gay-themed humor, “Gave’s Soapbox” is simply just that; a platform for the diatribes of a cookie-cutter liberal if I ever did see one.

But I digress and bring to you the point at hand: In the last heart-felt edition of “Gave’s Soapbox”, Mr. Rubin penned a commentary on women’s equality issues in which he invokes the name of the notorious serial killer and cannibal, Jeffery Dahmer. Mr. Rubin cites Dahmer as an “extreme” example of a man who lashed out violently against women. Before being bludgeoned to death with a mop handle by a fellow inmate, Jeffery Dahmer was an admitted deviant homosexual who, over the years, developed and harbored intensely violent sexual fantasies involving SEX WITH THE CORPSES OF YOUNG BOYS, among other things. How Mr. Rubin can confuse or compare the heinous crimes of a pedo/necrophile like Dahmer with crimes of men’s violence against women is beyond me. Anyone even remotely familiar with the case knows that ALL of Dahmer’s victims were MEN and BOYS; one whom was a 14-YEAR-OLD Loation boy. American history provides us several prime examples of sick, sadistic, woman-hating sociopaths such as Ted Bundy, Richard Ramierez, and David Berkowitz. Why then, in an editorial that addresses the issue of men’s violence against women, does Mr. Rubin invoke the name of a notorious serial killer who NEVER ONCE targeted women as potential victims? My plea is this: Mr. Rubin’s reference to Dahmer in his article is ludicrous, ridiculous, and done in the worst possible judgment since Mr. Rubin apparently isn’t even aware of the basic facts on Dahmer or his crimes. You do a huge dis-service to the causes you claim to champion when you print untrue and misleading information, such as in your last column. The school provides free Internet access to everyone, and I urge you to give it a try before you write your next column.

Pissed-off if this doesn’t bother anyone but me,
Chris McAtee
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Response from Student Health Services:

Dear Editor:

As Director of Student Health Services, I want to respond to Kara Deniz’s opinion article College Life Dissected in the February 8-14 issue of Temple News. The article contains a number of inaccuracies and misconceptions about Student Health Services on Main campus.

Student Health Services is a professional medical service, located on four Temple University campuses, staffed by highly skilled Board-certified physicians and nurse practitioners, nurses and a health educator. We receive over 30,000 student visits each year to provide health education counseling as well as treat illness.

At our Main campus location, two-thirds of student-patients walk in without calling ahead for an appointment. We do not turn away patients who walk in, but those who arrive during a peak volume time may experience a wait before being called up to the front desk to register and assigned to an appointment time to see a nurse or doctor.

The implementation of an all-appointment system has eliminated open-ended waits to see a provider such as occur in urgent care or emergency centers. Students know when their appointment time is and can choose to wait in our office, or come back. Students whose medical conditions mandate same-day evaluation receive it, and true emergencies are evaluated immediately. When we are not busy, students can be seen very quickly even for non-serious conditions.

In order to accommodate our students, we have both an in-house dispensary and laboratory. Ms. Deniz apparently felt that, during a peak volume time, a 20-minute wait to receive a medication after her visit was too long. I invite her to compare this to the process of receiving a prescription from a private physician’s office, driving to a commercial pharmacy, waiting in line both to drop off the prescription and then pick up it up. Waits at our dispensary can be nonexistent when we are not busy.

Students who do call ahead for an appointment are not greeted by a computerized male voice, but a real human being. Like other offices, we must sometimes place callers on hold if a staff member is assisting another patient, but we return to the caller as quickly as we can and then give the caller the same attention. A student’s visit to see a doctor or nurse for basic health services is covered by the Student Health Fee, but non-basic services such as medications and injections are not. Signage in the office reminds students that they are expected to pay for such services at the time they are rendered. For these additional services to be covered, the Student Health Fee would have to be substantially higher or Temple would have to raise tuition.

While Ms. Deniz was unhappy that the front desk staff did not look at her when
she approached them, she noted that her doctor was very responsive and
helpful and that there were employees who tried to make the experience more comfortable.

My greatest concern with Ms. Deniz’s article stems from her unsubstantiated sensationalist claim that horror stories abound, which may do readers of the News a disservice if they hesitate to come into Student Health Services even though they are ill. Illness can interfere with performance in classes, athletics and extra-curricular activities. Not getting early treatment can sometimes lead to a more serious illness or infection of other students. I ask that readers not be persuaded solely by Ms. Deniz’s opinion, but rather invite you to visit Student Health Services if you are ill and see for yourself the service we provide.

Dr. Ilene Moore,
Director of Student Health Services