To give John Laraway the forum to display his opinion is fine, but at what point do you stop and realize that there has to be some embellishing on his part? I take a couple of classes with him and, in the second class, he accused someone of “attacking” him due to her response to one of his comments made during a lecture. After seeing this behavior I did not put much credibility behind his statements to either The Mass Media or the Boston Globe.

Laraway is quoted as saying that the value of all of our educations would be degraded because of students’ cheating; well I can tell him that going to the Boston Globe and labeling the College of Management students as cheaters isn’t exactly increasing the value. The Globe did not print any follow up article, nor did it print any letters to the editor, so the lasting effect of one person’s comments will continue.

As a student Senator, Laraway is supposed to represent the students, so as a student I would like to tell him that his comments are not representative of 98% of the students, and to paint us all with the same brush was extremely unfair and selfish.

I challenge his argument that there is cheating in every class and dispute it 100%. To have your beliefs and morals is honorable, but to express your concerns in such a public way was irresponsible, and I believe will do far more damage to the “value of our degree” than a couple of students working together on an exam did.

Rick Bellan

College of Management, ’03