Additional letters to the editor

Querying graduating Bobcats

Ohio University graduating class of 2016, as you approach this auspicious milestone, I have a question for you: How will you be remembered?

I challenge you to take an active role in bringing about positive changes in our society.

When I graduated from high school, America was fighting a “cold war” against the Soviet Union. Public accommodations in the U.S. for people of my racial group, African Americans, were not available in the South. A person had to be 21 years old to vote, yet only 18 to die in combat. People wore hats, not caps turned around on their heads. There were no cellphones, and computers were the size of small houses. And AIDS had not surfaced.

When I finished my OHIO requirements for an undergraduate degree (a major in civil engineering and, I admit, a minor in partying), many upheavals had occurred in society. A summer of race riots enflamed American cities, including Chicago, Detroit, Newark, and my hometown of Cleveland. Students and faculties on many college campuses protested the Vietnam War.

My generation advocated for social justice largely through protest, ideally nonviolent (although, as alluded to above, there were violent protests, too), and community empowerment through political activism.

The class of 2016, you are inheriting a mess! I cite only three American examples. The economic gap between the rich and poor. Locking up a greater percentage of our citizens that any nation on Earth. The ever-increasing budget for national defense.

You, who are about to enter the corridors of power, don’t fall prey to the me-first attitude of a previous generation. If you think the homeless deserve their plight, support the public policy of locking up persons with addictive afflictions, agree with the warehousing of the elderly, and back the invasion of sovereign nations without just cause, then history will judge you harshly.

I leave you with two thoughts: Remember the observation that some attribute to the Irish-born British politician and writer Edmund Burke (1729-97): that it is necessary for only the good person to do nothing for evil to triumph. The other is of less historical note but as important, nonetheless: If it is to be, it is up to me!

—E. Louis Overstreet, BSCE ’67, 2011 alumni Medal of Merit recipient, retired civil engineer, Las Vegas, Nevada

Praising female Bobcats

I want to thank you for the wonderful issue about female students, alumnae, employees and professors [summer 2015]. I particularly want to mention Dru Riley Evarts, an alumna, BSJ ’51, MS ’73, PHD ’77, and professor emerita of journalism, who was a great magazine design instructor.

—Candace Hughes, MSJ ’87, Apache Junction, Arizona

Cherishing fond memories

Thank you so much for sending me the spring edition of Ohio Today. I miss Ohio University. I served as acting director of the summer school several years back. Wish everyone the best!

—Betty Sininger-Weimer, West Union, Ohio. She added that her son is Daniel Sininger, BBA ’79.