My Short-Lived Cause

I haven't really had a cause in awhile, you know, something to stand up for and get excited about. The other day, everyone's favorite UCSD former gubanatorial candidate decided to write an opinion article in the UCSD student newspaper, The Guardian, about alleged "misinformation" being given out on tours to prospective students. Here is the article followed by my response:
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UCSD myths do a disservice to students

Daniel Watts

"Ever hear the one about Geisel?”

Apparently, the concrete support arms that surround the main section were an afterthought, necessary to sustain the building’s structural integrity after the architect “forgot” to include the weight of the books in the original design. It’s sinking, too.

Or so goes the myth, first mentioned long ago by some intrepid UCSD student and since spread by word of mouth.

There’s also the one about the Sun God statue: Make a wish as you walk beneath its arch, and it will come true. This myth is a bit less well known. I’ve been here four years and have yet to see someone make a wish. Nor have I heard this myth spread by anyone not employed by the university.

There are myths about UCSD, and then there is misinformation — a blatant disregard for the truth.

This columnist’s audit of three specific campus tours on Jan. 25, Jan. 26 and Jan. 27 revealed misinformation being spread by some of UCSD’s College Ambassadors — a euphemism for “campus tour guides.”

Other than the library, UCSD’s most recognizable symbols are arguably the Koala, the Sun God and the Triton. Only the Triton escaped the clutches of inventive tour guides.
When Koala members along the tour route respectfully offered their newspaper to passersby, a few tour members grabbed copies. The tour guide that day immediately called out, “That paper has nothing to do with UCSD. It receives no funding from the school, the people who run it have nothing to do with us.” He then showed the official student newspaper: the UCSD Guardian. The difference between the two, he said, was that the student government funds the Guardian (it actually does not), and it does not fund the Koala (it really does).

The guide mangled the Sun God festival, too. The “$2 million festival” (actually less than $200,000) was funded entirely by the university (actually funded by the A.S. Council), according to Andrew.

According to another tour guide, the university named Price Center after Sol Price, the woman who founded Costco. It is the central gathering place for UCSD’s 15,000 undergraduates, many of whom have classes in Peterson Hall, named after Jack in the Box founder Jack Peterson. UCSD’s own on-campus fire station protects these buildings. New buildings under construction in the Student Center expansion will include an “international market and grill.”

Speaking of international, UCSD evidently has an “international school” and multiple “international centers” spread throughout the campus.

Not quite.

Sol Price was a man, and he founded Price Club, not Costco. There are 20,210 undergraduates as of winter 2005, the founder of Jack in the Box is named Robert and there is no on-campus fire station.

Student Center will not have an “international market and grill,” whatever that means. Neither does UCSD have an international school (the closest thing is the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies). Although UCSD sends hundreds of its students abroad, there is only one International Center on campus — and that’s more than many other schools.

Some guides treated the parents and students on the tour not only to a deluge of false information about the campus, but granted an interesting take on the college system as well.
This columnist’s home is Earl Warren College, which one ambassador described as having “no well-roundedness” and “straightforward objectives.” It’s a “career-oriented” college, he said, with minimal general education requirements — all of which must be in the same relative field as the student’s major.

Another tour guide had apparently never even been to Warren. When asked to point it out, she stood at the edge of Warren Mall and actually gestured toward a path that, if followed, would lead the wayward student through an ecological preserve, then to Interstate 5.
She also claimed that Warren required an academic internship as part of its general education, and that its philosophy was “bridging the gap between industry and education.”
All of that is wrong.

Cataloguing these tour guides’ transgressions may seem nitpicky, but giving incorrect information about academic requirements is probably the worst offense a representative of the university can commit. What separates each college is a different theme and separate GE requirements, both of which these tour guides mangled. They each cited wildly varying GE requirements for each college, showing a lack of uniformity even in their incompetence. This misinformation does a disservice to the new admits and their parents, some of whom were actually taking notes during the tour.

Assuming guides undergo the same training, or at least read the same campus welcome brochure, there is no real excuse for such varied descriptions of the campus. Of course, there are competent tour guides as well. Among them are seniors who have been involved in campus life for their entire academic careers and know the campus inside and out. It’s a shame that all of them aren’t like that.

Oh, and the Geisel Library myths? Debunked athttp://libraries.ucsd.edu/services/legends.htm.

The UCSD tunnels are real, by the way.

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Ok, so after reading this article, I emailed the tour guide office and was told that all of the quotations used in the article were false. Apparently, the tour guides recognized Daniel Watts on their tours and knew to tell the Tour Coordinator immediately after the tour that he had been belligerent and may fabricate what had been said.

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My response:

Daniel Watts's attempt at expose reporting is only half done. Show me a report on 20/20 where the reporter didn't try to get an interview with both sides. On those hidden camera things, they always have atleast some statement issued from the "exposed perpetrator of crimes against humanity". As a former tour guide I have an interest in how the tour guide program is portrayed and a　UCSD source says、"the remarks that he states were made by our tour guides were actually NOT stated by our tour guides. He made them up in an attempt to discredit the program. I spoke with each one of the tour guides immediately after their tours because he was hostile, aggressive and disruptive onthe tours." The source goes on to say that there were "major discrepancies" as to what was actually said. (I do hope he took another person on the tour and that he's not the only one claiming these remarks were made.)

Whether or not anything incorrect was said, I am a firm believer in the rule of bringing up a problem (actual or invented) to the parties concerned before taking it to the university community as a whole. He left us a bit defenseless and I think it would be a much stronger article if he hadn't come across as so one-sided. If Daniel Watts would like to be anything other than an opinion columnist, he should realize that there are two sides to every story. So again, it would have been nice to note in the article that we are addressing the problem, if such a problem exists, had he mentioned it to us.

It's interesting to me personally, that Daniel Watts has applied for a tour guide job, which is a fact that he probably thinks of as an attempt to remodel our program--now that he has shown it's alleged problems, but I can't help to think of him as anything other than a disgruntled rejected applicant, and if in fact these allegations do turn out to be false, I think we made the right decision in not allowing him to become a part of the tour guide program.

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So there. The day after I was so up-in-arms about this whole issue, I kind of lost interest in the whole thing. But it was nice to have a cause for about fifteen minutes.