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The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

Letters to the Editor

Go one step further for Darfur

Having created a scholarship to make it possible for a student from Darfur to come to GW is, as Students Taking Action Now: Darfur indicates, a good first step. But we cannot rest on our laurels. We should try to encourage other universities to put their money where their mouths are and establish similar opportunities. It would be nice to see all of the Washington-area universities set an example for the rest of the nation. In this way, the institutions of higher education in the nation’s capital would lead in an important way.

Speaking about putting one’s money where one’s mouth is, I see an opportunity for STAND to get out ahead with the help of the GW student body. If they were to petition every student at GW to personally contribute $10 to a Darfur scholarship (the cost of several cups of coffee at Starbucks), could we not raise $150,000 and bring a second student from Darfur to Foggy Bottom? If one student is good, two are better. Multiply this by America’s 3,000 colleges and universities and you have a real force for good, a realizable way to actually help and a positive rather than a negative.

-Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, University president

Don’t blame campus tour guides

I write in regards to the column “Advertising Should Reflect Service” (Oct. 5, p. 4). I agree wholeheartedly with the title, but the author fails to present a cogent argument on this topic.

The main points of her piece center on the newspaper program and inefficient services. As to the former, tour guides had no idea the service was to be cut. If we did, does she really believe that we, as students, would not have led a charge to retain it? As to the latter, I am sorry that the freshman author does not recognize, in her limited time as a student, that services like Student Technology Services and Student Package Services see their highest peaks as packages of forgotten belongings, text books and requests to repair brand-new computers inundate these offices early in the semester.

If any STAR were asked about these services, they would respond fairly and accurately that they are available and, at times, may be in high demand. We would also inform visitors that students should expect the appropriate ramifications of these aspects.

As the author said, these few minuses do not outweigh the positive aspects of GW. Therefore, in the brief hour a tour lasts, it would be foolish to stop and inform potential applicants that you may need to wait in line at package services when students are all receiving their textbooks. If the author sees these things as issues, then she should take action and not criticize more than 100 of this University’s most active student volunteers.

-Timothy M. Saccoccia, Senior, STAR Coordinator

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