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Letter To The Editor:
I’m going to make this straight to the point – enough already from AUSU President Debbie Jabbour! Her remarks in Alberta Views magazine were notably uncalled for and unsettling. And now that AU has spoken back trying to pick up the pieces with damage control I would think that the AUSU President would be more in tune with what she was saying and what was going into print. But after reading her article in this week’s The Voice, it has been proven that this is not the case, because I, as some other students, am offended yet again. Her comments on why students may find a course difficult were ridiculous! “Sometimes it is discovered that the student did not complete junior high math, or have never finished high school, or their first language is not English.” Excuse me? Well, I’m finding my statistics course hard. And I hate to break it to you but not only do I have junior high math, but I also have high school math. I have a high school diploma which I happened to have honours in. And my first language? You guessed it – English. As a student at AU I just expected our AUSU President to have a little more maturity in her articles, responses, or even quotes when representing our University or its students. But what do I know? I’m just an average student struggling with some course work.
Nadine Boulos-Jarvis
I’d like to clarify one point. Dr. Abrioux’s comments in last week’s Voice were a direct response to my inquiry about issues which were raised in the Alberta Views article, but which have also been of concern to students for some time. He answered questions which I posed. AU did not approach The Voice to speak back on this issue and therefore the response probably could not be categorized as “damage control” (which implies that the university felt the need to publicly counter information in the AV article). I did not get the impression that AU was particularly concerned about the article when I made my inquiry as Dr. Abrioux had not yet read it (he had just returned from a trip).
This of course does not alter the intent of Dr. Abrioux’s comments; I simply want to make clear that the subject matter of his response was in direct reply to questions which I posed, as stated in my introduction to his letter. My impression is that the misleading sidebar comparing Alberta tuition rates was of more concern to the university as it suggests that AU tuition is much higher than it is.
As to your other issue – who else thinks we should petition the university to get MATH 215 converted into a six credit course?
