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Show LETTERS TO 1HE EDITOR Disrupt Editor: William Birenbaum, in his address to the Contemporary Issues class, spoke of the importance of disruption as a function of education. Education should bring the student to examine the status quo, to criticize it, and to change it to conform more Perfectly to his ideals. In this 'ight, the current movement of students determined to h ave an input on budget decisions affecting af-fecting student services is a good thing. However, Birenbaum went on to qualify his statement by adding that only quality disruption has a place in education. I am frankly appalled at the lack of quality in our student movement. The instigators in-stigators of the movement claim that student representatives and the professionals involved should have been presented with the curate facts involved in the budget decision and allowed to decide for themselves if they concurred with the administration's ad-ministration's priorities. However, ln soliciting the support of the mass of the students by urging 'hem to sign a petition, said '"gators consistently have not Presented the students with the accurate facts about the issue at "and, and in fact have fed them naif-truths ("...the Student Health Service has been cut from $240,000 to $40,000"-it isn't this simple), blatant lies ("HELPIine and HSICC are in danger of being cut" both are funded completely com-pletely and solely by ASUU and will continue in that status), and emotional appeals with no relevance to the situation whatsoever ("..the Athletic Department receives $1.2 million each year"). In their emotional appeals to the mass of students, the instigators have forgotten to notice that not only the administration ad-ministration but they themselves are screwing the students by obscuring one of the main issues, which is accurate communication. com-munication. I carried a petition until I woke up to the unpleasant reality of the mess I was taking part in. I would suggest that the students interested in-terested in establishing an open-minded, open-minded, solution-oriented dialogue with the administration first do the work involved in digging up the true facts (admittedly (ad-mittedly they will find themselves up against unbelievable double-talk double-talk and red tape) and then present these facts clearly, un-confused un-confused by emotions and selfish motives, to the student body at large for their support. Only then will we have "quality disruption" and only then will I carry around another petition. Lorraine Anderson |