Ultrasound RV offers deceiving services

Dear editor,

For the past several weeks, Image Clear Mobile Ultrasound has been on campus Monday mornings from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds sound nice, but with their services comes a motive most people don’t realize. Image Clear, brought here by the Navigators, is part of Pregnancy Solutions and Services, a faith-based anti-choice group from Akron, and is not here to help young women at Kent, but to attempt to make a very important personal decision for us.

I went to the RV to see what kind of information they give out. I was given a number of pamphlets and a CD-ROM to watch on a computer. Inaccurate information about abortion is given in most of the pamphlets and on the CD, such as highlighting breast cancer as a risk of having an abortion.

No matter how any of us feel about abortion, we all deserve to be given actual facts. If you think that what Image Clear is doing is wrong, join us outside of the Image Clear Ultrasound RV today between 9 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to protest them being here and deceiving Kent State students and to give accurate information to people going in.

Katie Troha

sophomore applied conflict management major

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Elimination of history doctoral program will hurt entire university

Dear editor,

As one of Kent’s first four doctoral degrees, the history program has become the 8th most productive in the nation. In all measures set by American Historial Association guidelines, Kent’s program meets the national norms. Somehow, though, the university administration believes the history doctoral program needs to be dismantled.

A recent proposal would remove this vital program, based on shaky logic. To shift graduate research capabilities to Biomedical Sciences and the Liquid Crystal Institute, the history doctoral program would be eliminated. No other department is being called on to sacrifice its doctoral program. Other humanities and social sciences programs are not in jeopardy because the administration considers them essential to the university. Is the administration suggesting that history is not fundamental to education? A brief glance at Kent State University’s core curriculum would show that this is not the case – all students in the College of Arts and Sciences are required to take courses in humanities to successfully complete their degrees.

The CAS mission statement declares that it wishes to foster “the skills of critical reasoning, writing, reading and deduction.” The history department plays an essential role in facilitating this objective. Undergraduate education would suffer as the reservoir of instructors provided by doctoral students disappears. History courses provide essential training applicable to all areas of research, especially critical thinking.

This proposal threatens the undergraduate students’ ability to achieve their academic potential, putting them a step behind in the job market. It is incomprehensible that the administration would want to hinder its students’ academic success, but that is the likely outcome if this proposal comes to fruition. Before the university proceeds with this destructive proposal, the administration needs to address these issues.

Carole Avella, history, graduate assistant

Erika Briesacher, history, graduate assistant

Mathew Brundage, history, graduate assistant

Nathan Fry, history, graduate assistant

Denise Jenison, history, graduate assistant

Jeffrey O’Leary, history, graduate assistant

Lisa Riley Lazear, history major

Melissa Steinmetz, history, teaching fellow

Andrew Tremel, history, graduate assistant

Thomas Weyant, history, teaching fellow