University Standards and Minorities

Re ‘Many at Cal State Support Move to Raise Standards’ (Nov. 14):

Cal State Long Beach, in the 1960s when I transferred as a sophomore student, had an unwritten internal policy to apply stricter standards to minority or foreign students in the foreign languages department. Each class was a struggle. With previous university-level work in Spanish (with Spanish being my mother tongue), I was required to sit through beginning Spanish classes. Credit by examination was denied consistently and systematically.

I left Cal State Long Beach feeling crushed and defeated. I was, and still am, five units away from receiving master’s degrees in Spanish literature and anthropological linguistics. My interests, curiously enough, still are in non-verbal communications.

I think the Cal State system has a sound and exemplary foundation and objectives. However, some of the people that are to implement those goals should be weeded out and the counseling faculty at university and high school levels beefed up. Minority students in our university system have the brains; they might just need an extra helping hand in learning how to function within the system.

ILDA R. SHIBE

Irvine