As alumni, students should not donate

To the Daily:

I have spent at least the last decade fantasizing about the day I would graduate in the Big House. Imagine my surprise to see the Daily's story yesterday that graduation would not be held there. I had two immediate thoughts. First, why is the University going on with a construction project that is currently in limbo because of litigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and a veterans' rights group? Second, how does a construction project whose schedule had recently been set possibly interfere with an event that had been known for years?

I looked forward to my final moment at this University during which I could celebrate my modest achievements and a bright future with my family and friends in the stadium where I have spent some of my happiest and most exciting moments. While the place where you graduate is insignificant in the long run, the symbolism is important to me and I am sure to many of my peers. It is this symbolism that drives my desire to walk down the bleachers painted in the maize and blue of my beloved college instead of the green and white of an institution whose name means nothing beyond the border of this stagnant state.

This is the straw that broke the camel's back. I intend never to donate directly to this institution after I graduate. I only hope that my peers will join me so the University remembers that its primary mission is to research and educate, which is made possible by alumni donors. Students become these donors, and we are the ones to whom the University must cater.

If nothing else, the University must allow us to graduate with dignity at our beloved Big House - before its great mutilation.

Kevin Wilson, LSA senior

A disappointment for parents too

To the Daily:

I am writing to voice my displeasure over the news that the Big House will not be available for my daughter's commencement in April. While this is an incredible disappointment already, to hear the news that students will not graduate on their campus is obscene.

I have paid more than $130,000 for my daughter's out-of-state tuition. To be told four months before graduation and not to be notified formally by mail is unthinkable. I am deeply puzzled by why the University administration cannot find an alternative to the Big House that is on campus. If I had wanted her to graduate at Eastern Michigan University, I would have sent her there, where they allow Ohio residents to pay in-state tuition instead of the out-of-state tuition we paid at University of Michigan.

Certainly, on a campus of more than 41,000 enrolled students, there must be some place to hold commencement to give this year's graduates the same send off as those who have graduated from the University before them.

Please reconsider this decision and give our students the commencement they deserve.

Leslie McNamara: The letter writer is the parent of a University student.

EMU will be unique, get over yourselves

To the Daily:

I wish to submit my support for the University's decision to hold commencement at a site that can accommodate enough people. It will be a great story to tell for years to come: How this year's senior class was the only in recent memory to hold commencement off campus.

David Freiman, School of Music, Theatre and Dance senior

Would Coleman want office in Ypsi?

To the Daily:

I respect the fact that there is construction going on in the Big House. I respect the fact that the University has to accommodate more than 6,000 graduating seniors. I only wish the University would respect my desire to have a proper graduation. I grew up in a University of Michigan family and saw my brothers and cousins graduate from this university. I saw these commencements from the comfort of a seat at the Big House. If you recall, this is a seat I paid more than $200 to sit in at football games each year I've been a student here. I do not want my last memory of the University of Michigan to be in Ypsilanti.

I ask you University President Mary Sue Coleman, how can you rob us of our last Michigan experience? What if they put your office in Ypsilanti?

Meghan O'Neill, LSA senior

Green and white don't make blue

To the Daily: