PTA @ UH

Usually, we associate Parent-Teachers Associations (PTA) with elementary, middle and high schools.

However, University of Hawaii also has a PTA.

This has caused some controversy.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Oct/02/ln/FP510020331.html

The reason why a PTA was started at UH was because some parents were concerned about what was going in the dorms. There incidents at the dorms where drunk students got ill, violent or even dead from overdose.

Parents were also concerned about the shortage of student housing on campus.

However, some students at UH are pissed off at the PTA for discouraging drunken-ness on campus. The attitudes of those students were "we're college students already, so buzz off parents"

Now, my opinion on all this ----

Some parents do over-manage their kid's lives excessively, even the kids who are already grown into adults.

However, the parents do have a right to be concerned about what goes on in campus. After all, it's the parents who usually pay the tuition.

After all, if a student has 1) died of binge drinking, 2) commited suicide, 3) gotten sexually assaulted, 4) gotten into a drunken fight, etc. --- who's going to pick up the broken pieces?

It AINT gonna be the admissions office, NOT ASUH, NOT the student housing staff, NOT those Ka Leo columnists who opposed the PTA.

It will be the parents who have to pick up the broken pieces.

So dam right the parents should have some say in what's going on in campus!

THIS DOESN'T MEAN that the UH administration has to satisfy every single parent (impossible), NOR does it mean the parents should over-manage every move a student make. NOR should a parent be picking their kid's major or extra-curricular activity.

But the UH administration should at least listen to the concerns of the parents.

So I say, let's have the PTA involved at UH.