Dear President Jischke, I would like to take this time to congratulate you on receiving the position as president of Purdue University; however, there are a number of issues you should be aware of before you arrive.

Although Purdue is a great university, like anything, there is room for improvement. That's where you come in. Issues dealing with overcrowding, parking, acceptance guidelines and requirements and so on have been plaguing this university for a number of years and it's time for someone to address them.

Okay, sure, so we have a parking committee on the University Senate, but what are they doing? I have heard over and over that Purdue is working to fix the parking situation here, but what have I seen over the past few years that I've been here? Nothing, except for the demolition of GEM and the Black Cultural Center just to make way for a gravel lot providing spaces for under 100 cars and big slab of concrete that is supposed to be a bus stop.

Sure, students can ride the bus to class, but what about the students who live in areas where bus service is not an option. Instead of hopping on Citybus, they have to wind all the way up to the top of the parking garages and pass a number of empty A and B permit spaces just to find that not one C space is available. The university also chooses to sell more C permits than there are C spaces available, so students end up paying all this money for a measly C permit and can't even park in C spots. I know students who have paid more per semester in parking tickets than they have for a C permit because they had to park on city streets because there were no empty C spots left in the parking garages. Their only other option is to wake up at the crack of dawn just to get a spot in the garages.

Most of this problem with parking stems from the record enrollment of the university, which is another issue that needs to be dealt with. Why do we keep accepting more and more students when we don't have the facilities to house them let alone provide them with a quality education? Students should never have to sit on the floor in a class because there aren't enough seats, or live in the lobby of a residence hall because there aren't enough rooms available. In most cases, these students were promised a room, arrived and discovered, 'Hey, I don't have a room. I have to sleep in a lobby that someone converted into a living space and called a dorm room.'

The university needs to take a long hard look at what they are denying students. Not only are they denying them living accommodations, they are denying them a quality education. Some students don't even see a professor until their junior year because teaching assistants have been teaching their prerequisite courses. Sure, some T.A.'s are great instructors, but, the truth is, some aren't.

T.A.'s need more time to delve extensively into their area of study before they go and teach it to someone else. Don't get me wrong, I think T.A.'s should be involved in teaching, just not the initial classroom instruction. For some students, this is their first time with certain coursework and we are putting the teaching responsibilities into the hands of a student who may not have a complete understanding of the topic they are teaching.

We can take a stab at the issues with the lack of living space and professors if we could just take steps to curb enrollment. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great honor that so many people want to attend Purdue, but is that because it's easier to get into Purdue than IU and numerous other universities? I've known students who've had SAT scores in the 800's and 900's and were admitted into computer science at Purdue. I've also known students who've had excellent SAT scores and graduated at the top of their high school classes and have been denied acceptance to Purdue because they applied in March and programs were already full. What does that say about our university when all the programs are full in March? That means were accepting students who barely know their ABC's, let alone applied physics just because they decided to send in their application in September.

We can curb enrollment and avoid overcrowding in the residence halls and classrooms if the university would just raise the admittance guidelines and have a set application deadline. We should never have to deny exceptional students just because they applied in March. I applied in March and I thank God I got in, otherwise, who knows, I could have been a Hoosier.