Letter to the Editor

Other coffee choices

In the fall of last year, I worked part-time in the Gelman Library Starbucks, which was always busy. After a semester of closing shifts, I quit in December to prepare for studying abroad in the spring. When I visited my old co-workers this past weekend, nobody seemed too happy about the one-sided article (“Starbucks closes earlier with no plans to increase hours” Nov. 9, p. 6) printed in the Hatchet concerning their store’s hours.

I sympathized with their opinions and figured the least I could do was write in and offer another point of view. The Gelman Starbucks, due to the volume of business it receives, is heavily staffed. Because of its location, many of the workers are students who have to deal with the same homework and exam demands as the customers.

Closing shifts usually run at least an hour later than the time the doors are locked. Student baristas, a name for experts in preparing coffee, are often unable to attend to school matters until every tabletop is clean and all trash taken out. Certainly, earlier closing times make it easier on them, although it is highly doubtful that this played any part in the Starbucks Corporation’s decision.

I fully understand the addiction to the Starbucks brand, but I assure you there are other options for satisfying that late night caffeine craving, options that weren’t mentioned in the article. The 7-11 in the basement of Mitchell Hall serves coffee and is open 24 hours. If you’re at Gelman, the walk would probably invigorate you as much as the coffee. They sell the bottled Frappuccino drinks as well, if you simply must have the Starbucks flavor.

-Lauren Knight


Honor our troops

As a veteran, a GW graduate student and a Columbian College of Arts and Sciences graduate senator, I find it extremely tasteless and disgusting that our school would lower the American flag to half staff for the death of basketball coach Arnold “Red” Auerbach and not on Veterans Day.

The flag was lowered for the famous coach on the same day that the death toll of American soldiers in Iraq for October reached 105. The decision was not made for the troops however, and veterans were not recognized on their holiday.

Whoever made that decision should apologize to every member of the University community, especially to every veteran and ROTC student, past and present. I want University officials to reconsider their priorities and the namesake of our school, a man who fought an imperial power to found the country that those 105 soldiers died to defend. Not even Veterans Day was reason enough for you to honor those troops, and that is truly shameful.

-Patrick Joseph Ryan, graduate student

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