College needs renamed to represent all majors

Dear Editor,

I support the renaming of the College of Fine and Professional Arts (F&PA) to the College of The Arts (CoTA) because it is a fitting appellation for much of what they do.

However, I am concerned that some of my colleagues in F&PA fail to recognize that the “arts” in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) represent much more than just the traditional reference to the liberal arts. Lest the university community be left with the misconception that the “arts” in Arts and Sciences is merely shorthand for the liberal arts, or more specifically the humanities, I think that it is important to recognize that by all traditional and contemporary definitions of art, poetry and literature are part of “the arts.”

Our colleagues and students in English and Modern and Classical Language Studies who create poetry and literature are artists, and those who study poetry and literature in several A&S departments are no less important to the art community than our art historian colleagues and students in the soon to be CoTA. It also is important to remember the critical role that the creation and study of poetry, literature, visual art, music, theatre and dance play in the scholarships of our colleagues and students in Pan-African Studies.

Thus, while the faculty and students of the soon to be CoTA focus exclusively on “the arts,” CoTA does not exclusively comprise all of “the arts” represented at Kent State University. If we at Kent State are to engage and enrich the public through the “the arts” in a truly meaningful manner, then we must do so as a cooperative effort between CoTA and A&S. We in the College of Arts and Sciences look forward to that collaboration.

John Stalvey

Professor, Department of Biological Sciences and

Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

Smoking ban not issue of choice, but health

Dear Editor,

No smoking. That is the sign I’d like to see in Kent’s restaurants and bars. All of this nonsense with “freedom of choice” to smoke is simply ridiculous. How about this for choice?

I have asthma. I have no choice in this matter. When I go to the bars or sit in a smoky restaurant, I have trouble breathing. Now, I know that you might say I have the choice to abstain from going to the bar or a restaurant that has a smoking section.

But I should not have to sit in my house so that my health will not be jeopardized. Unfortunately, when a smoker lights up, it affects someone other than him or her. It affects me. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 17 percent of new diagnoses of lung cancer are non-smokers.

The American Cancer Society also reports six out of every 10 patients with lung cancer will die within one year of diagnosis and eight of out every 10 patients will die within two years of diagnosis.

When will the smoke clear so that we will be able to see the truth about the effects of smoking in public places?

Bar business in Kent is not going to suffer as a result of clean indoor air. No student I know would trade a quick walk home from the bars for driving to another town just to smoke a cigarette and sit in a bar at the same time.

I hope that the bar owners, elected officials and people of Kent will realize that this proposed “ban” is really not a ban at all. No one is saying that you cannot buy cigarettes. No one is telling you that you cannot smoke inside your own home or even outside in the open air. The smoking ban is simply about protecting the rights of all people to breathe healthy air in public places.

Clean indoor air would benefit the health of all residents in Kent. So, it’s time that we put out that cigarette, and it’s time that the bars put up “No Smoking” signs.

Megan Dean

Graduate student in health education and promotion