Editor:
Reading Craig Froehlich’s Sept. 9 article, “Sept. 11: Tragedy and Tuition” gave me the courage to relate a similar outrage that I suffered recently. Upon receiving my September credit card bill, I was shocked and hurt to find that my bill was due on Sept. 11! Never mind the fact that my bill is due on the 11 of every month, so this due date was effectively established three years ago when I applied for the card, I still can not believe the audacity of the company in letting this date be printed on their bills.
Similarly, the fact that tuition is due three weeks after the beginning of class is no excuse for the university not anticipating the pain and confusion this due date will cause students. I refuse to pay bills on this day; I would hope that Froehlich would please join me, our late payments will be small prices to pay to express our indignation and disbelief to these heartless entities, who obviously are not true patriots like ourselves.
Really, is there such a dearth of worthwhile topics that we need a feature article on the callous and insensitive logic lying behind tuition due date? Froehlich is right: The real reason will probably be anticlimactic to you.
As I suggested above, there is a method behind the tuition due date; it is always due exactly three weeks after the start of classes. Go ahead, check the academic calendars available online. And while you’re at it, notice that the calendar for next year’s fall semester is already available. So the Sept. 11 due date was probably established well over a year ago. I find it hard to believe the administration is filled with such people when in the very same paper I read an article detailing an entire week’s worth of university sponsored events commemorating the events and people of Sept. 11.
I also am outraged and in disbelief that the author finds it acceptable to so blatantly insult people and make blanket statements about their motivations, when he freely admits that he made no effort whatsoever to research the reasoning behind the tuition due date.
His words about reflecting on “a precarious membership in the global family” ring shamefully hollow when he doesn’t offer those he condemns a chance to speak for themselves or give them the benefit of the doubt. No, he doesn’t even want to know their story, as it would take away from the all-important climax of his diatribe. Is he afraid that he might find actual people who were shocked and hurt and still pained by Sept. 11, instead of the mindless bureaucratic drones necessary for his theories?
If it really pains Froehlich so much to concern himself with such banal and irrelevant tasks as bill payments on Sept. 11, I suggest he pay his tuition on Sept. 10.
Zac AllenAlumnus