Is there a strategy I missed when editor of my college newspaper?  The last few editions of the Spectator, which I read every week, have been front page free adverts for Olive Garden, iPad 4G, and the “Hunger Games” movie.  A black aviator who visits our campus to talk about flying against Nazi jets in 1945 is consigned to ...

As a former Resident Assistant for Valdosta State University, I assisted in situations that could have become far more serious, if policies such as the new color coded ID system had not been in place. With those experiences in mind, it is unfortunate that Ms. Kaymaya Hinson expresses a preference of personal convenience over the on-campus safety of herself and ...

Students should take Odum library seriously As a longtime Odum patron, I have to agree with the author of the recent letter decrying the complete disregard and lack of respect many VSU students appear to have for the sanctity of Odum library. It’s shocking to see how lightly they take time allotted for studying their coursework, which doesn’t come cheap ...

I attend VSU like the next person, and, like the next person, I utilize the buses. Transportation has become an issue. The constant inconsistency of the route is too much. I have classes at 3:30 and at 3 p.m., 3:15 p.m. or even 3:20 p.m. a bus can be at the stop to help  me from Centennial to class. There ...

An article written by Jennifer Faulconer and featured in The Spectator titled “Valdosta does not support recycling” included several key points of inaccurate information. I am a VSU graduate of Biology and Chemistry and trust that anyone associated with VSU has the most honorable intentions. My feeling is that your contributing writer initially had a bad experience with recycling in ...

1. Dear members of ‘The Spectator’ editorial team, I am writing with regard to the article ‘Veterans in the classroom’ in today’s issue of your paper. This article seems to be emblematic of an extremely worrying trend at VSU and in American higher education at large, namely the unquestioning and uncritical acceptance of military perspectives and military values in higher education. In a democratic society with a supposedly clear separation of powers and institutional spheres, it seems worrying that military values—hierarchy, authority, unquestioning obeisance of orders, the use of violence, etc.—are intruding into institutions of higher learning like VSU, apparently with no questions asked. In a society already characterised by an ever-growing punitive ‘carcereal archipelago’ and in an already crime-plagued and violent town like Valdosta, questions ought to be asked as to the role of military personnel in criminal justice programmes, instead of just uncritically offering a description of their activities, as in your article. Moreover, in a situation in which the USA is already engaged in two illegal wars of conquest abroad, questions ought to be asked at institutions of higher learning such as VSU as to the role which the military has come to play in this society. The total lack of awareness of those issues reflected in your article is deeply troubling to me. It seems to contradict the very mission of this university. Yours sincerely, Dr. Daniel Nehring Assistant Professor of Sociology 2 Dear Mr. Johnson, Ms. Green’s November 12th Article on “Veterans in the Classroom” was recently brought to my attention, and I am at a loss for words. ...