I, for one, would like Sam Baker to write a commentary piece, just so that the giant hole in his/her uninformed argument can be just that much clearer.
Let me extrapolate on a key consideration left out of that letter. Sam Baker seems quite familiar with Arch Café’s finances. That’s remarkable, since no student, not even those who ran Arch Café, has managed to obtain that information. Or maybe s/he believes that every word that comes out of the administration is entirely honest and truthful. “I simply want people to be evaluative and realistic,” Baker writes. Do you think Arch Café ran without a business plan? That plan’s effectiveness cannot be judged without access to their accounts.
Your argument was based on the assumption that it was a failing business, which would be impossible to verify at this point. So yes, please, further investigation would be nice. I think we’d all like to know what the actual profits or lack thereof were, and if “financially unsustainable” actually means “causing us trouble with the corporations we’ve contracted your source of on-campus food to.” And on this issue of the Café’s profitability, can we not place a value on the personality of Arch Café (which might/probably does turn a small profit) and its role as a refuge we, as students, can be proud to say is ours? I guess some would rather the administration tell them what they like, instead of deciding for themselves. I mean, we surely haven’t decided to pursue a university degree so that we might be able to think for ourselves and perhaps come to the conclusions that people don’t always tell the truth, and that money is not the only thing of value.
Lesya Nakoneczny
U3 Geography (Honours)