Larry Garrison wrote:
> Maintaining good health is not related to learning?  I believe there is
> a good body of research that says otherwise.

Sure, maintaining good health is related to learning.  So is eating, so 
we should have a nutrition fee.  (Oh, wait, we already have that, at 
least for students who live on campus.  It's called a forced meal plan 
contract.)  Getting to school is also related to learning, so we should 
have a transportation fee that will provide cars to students who don't 
already have them.  (Hey, we can combine this fee with the Clean Campus 
fee and buy them all hybrids.)  High school preparation is also a factor 
in University learning, so let's assess another fee on our students and 
use the proceeds to shore up the local high schools.  Etc.

The point is not whether maintaining good health is related to learning. 
  The question is, who is *responsible* for maintaining good health -- 
the individual or the collective?  I believe each person, including our 
students, is responsible for maintaining his or her own health.  The 
proposed student health fee is nothing more or less than socialized 
medicine on a campus-wide scale.  And I am not a socialist.  Which, I 
know, makes me a minority among our faculty.

> I believe most students will
> support a health fee if they understand that students will be served at
> the clinic regardless of their ability to pay.

Yup, like I said, socialized medicine.  Hillary couldn't impose it on 
the whole country, but some of my colleagues may yet manage to impose it 
on our students.  Sigh.

-- 
Joe Dumas, Ph.D.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Computer Science & Electrical Engineering
Dept. 2302
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga, TN 37403
Phone:  (423) 425-4084
Fax:  (423) 425-5442
E-mail:  [log in to unmask]

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sometime in your life." -- Sir Winston Churchill

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