God and peace on the streets of Egypt: Daydreams

Posted by Rick Chrisman

Wow, look at what Egypt just did! Do you suppose we could do something like that — a nonviolent revolution? M-m-m, it's doubtful. Not enough outrage, and not enough self-control.

Our Tea Partiers are definitely outraged, but they want to bring guns to their rallies! Imagine: all those men in Tahrir Square for 18 days, and without weapons. We aren't in Arizona any more, Toto.

The Muslim protesters in the Square prayed publicly 5 times a day, demonstrating what the fundamental tenets of religion advocate: nonviolence. If only organized religion could stick to the basics of God and peace, the world would be a better place.

Yes, a good religion is hard to find, but everybody needs one. Why? Because religion provides our spirituality with an outlet, gives some starch to good intentions and provides a community of support when things get rough. Most importantly, it replaces politics as our ultimate endeavor. But people shouldn't adopt religion for the sake of getting into heaven. They must do it for the sake of God and peace.

Consider what Gandhi accomplished through his religion. He managed to peaceably remove the British Empire from India. After a conventional Hindu upbringing, Gandhi eventually wove a faith out of his reinterpretation of the Bhagavad Gita. His religion could be summarized as a devotion to "Truth," and his faith that "Truth," which he equated with God, prevails.

But "Truth" can prevail only when we don't get in its way. In other words, we must not seek out conflict with our "enemies," but understand them and respect them as fellow people. As Gandhi asked "what barrier is there that love cannot break?"

Gandhi was averse to spiritual violence as much as he was to physical violence. He argued that self-abuse, hatred of others, anger and jealousy were qualities that could be shed with meditation. Gandhi took up practices that many of us would consider unrealistic (a strict vegetarian diet, fasting, celibacy, etc.), yet he showed us that peace is achieved only with some degree of self-restraint. He maintained these practices for their own merit, but they also empowered him with the will to topple an empire.

Gandhi was not a saint (there's a lot of evidence to this point), and he would not let anyone call him one. He wasn't motivated for the sake of being pious or virtuous, but to live as closely to the Truth as possible. His biographer Louis Fisher wrote that Gandhi tried "to establish a harmony between words, beliefs and acts." In this way, Gandhi was only "seeking the formula for mental health." Yet he liberated a whole country in the process. What a story. Could it be ours as well?

Gandhi's goal, in a word, was self-realization, which he didn't consider to be fulfillment or happiness, but self-improvement through service. He wanted people to know the freedom of self-reliance, which he called "the beauty self help." He was entirely devoted to serving the poor. In his words, "I made the religion of service my own, as God could only be realized through service." You could say he deprived himself of many material things, yet got something much greater in return.

Gandhi strove to be passion free, to "rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion," as many in our society should. But that spirituality needed a religion whose discipline would get him to that point. In turn, he improved upon Hinduism and Christianity, and he knew God and peace.

That's all religion is: God and peace. Can't we use more of that? Find yourself a good religion. Turn the world upside down.

Rick Chrisman is director of Religious and Spiritual Life, teaches occasionally in the Religion and Philosophy departments and suspects art is the one true religion.

Will gay marriage survive state legislature?: Politics for the Upstate Student

Posted by Julia Grigel

Is 2011 the year for gay marriage in New York state? Governor Andrew Cuomo recently restated his commitment to see same-sex marriage legislation passed this year. But the chances of the bill succeeding are slim, since it will depend largely upon the decision of the Republican-controlled State Senate.

To clear things up, New York state legislature is simple: it's basically like the U.S. Congress. There are two houses: the Assembly and the Senate. Bills often die in one of the two houses. It is tiresome and frustrating, but, as Cuomo has said, when it functions well, it can be "beautiful."

But the beauty in this struggle has been hard to find. It's mostly been maddening. New Yorkers have been close to winning the marriage equality battle for almost five years. Since June 2007, a same-sex marriage bill has passed in the State Assembly three times, each time by a wide margin. But each time the Senate has rejected it, even back in 2009, when the Democrats had the majority. In the November 2010 elections, the Republicans won back the majority, and there was little turnover in Democratic senators.

The most important question is this: will some senators change their minds? It seems obvious that a senator who once voted "no" on an issue-based bill such as this one would probably vote "no" again. However, several factors might come into play this year to change the minds of senators who once opposed same-sex marriage.

The most important factor is the voice of the people, that strange concept upon which our democracy purports to stand. A recent Quinnipiac University poll indicated that New Yorkers support gay marriage by the highest margin ever recorded: 56-37. This is a complete reversal from 2004, when New Yorkers opposed gay marriage by 55 - 37.

The public's readiness to see a marriage equality bill might persuade some senators who were on the line in 2009. Also, increased pressure coming from Andrew Cuomo, as well as U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who sent personal letters to each State lawmaker earlier this month, might push some senators over the edge.

What would be crucial this time around is that a strong majority of the senate Democrats shows support in order to convince hesitant Republicans that casting a "yes" vote might be worth breaking party loyalties. Who knows how many Republicans voted "no" against their principles while under pressure from their peers last time? Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos has stated that, although he will personally oppose a gay-marriage bill, he will allow fellow Republican senators to vote according to their "conscience."

Despite signs that the public is more accepting of same-sex marriage than before, and despite the strong leadership of Cuomo and Gillibrand, the odds still look slim. Knowing what the New York state Senate is capable (or, rather, incapable) of, I'm not convinced that this year will bring anything new on the gay rights front.

Emotions run high when politics step into the realm of the family. In the summer of 2009, my oldest sister got married. This summer, my other sister will get married. And yet our parents remain unmarried because they are both women. I hope that by next summer we will be able to celebrate another marriage — this time, between two women in their 50s.

Of course people on both sides of the debate are angry. But frankly, I fail to understand why a third party would care about a marriage between two people of the same sex. It is, however, entirely understandable why people get angry about being denied a fundamental right.

Recent events in the Middle East have reminded us how lucky we are to have one of the basic rights we too often take for granted: freedom of speech. And in our democracy, we have the opportunity to use this right to demand additional rights. Gay rights advocacy groups tirelessly lobby in Albany, and will only continue to pressure their opponents as the debate heats up this year. And remember, we may always contact State senators by phone to voice our opinions—yes, they actually do take note of what you say!

The civil rights movement didn't end in the ‘60s; it is ongoing, and in a nation where 45 out of 50 states discriminate based on sexual orientation, it is far from over. In the words of State Senator Tom Duane, "There's sort of a paradox about this. The time is never right for civil rights. The economy, wars, etc. The troubles we've had here in the Senate. It's never ever the right time. But the paradox is that it's always the time to be on the right side of history." Duane has vowed to introduce a gay marriage bill this session. Whether the Senate will be "on the right side of history" remains to be seen.

Julia Grigel is a senior government major who enjoys politics, especially when they're reactionary and/ or German.

Above and beyond ambivalence: Equating liberalism with apathy leaves too many in silence

Posted by Danny Pforte

Brian Connor, I understand your argument for the need to be apathetic. We live in an environment where the majority of students do not have an understanding of the world, of people who are discriminated against in our "liberal" and free country. Skidmore Unofficial makes it clear that some students are unafraid to go anonymous and state feelings of racism that are prevalent on campus. One student commented,

"I'm sick of these kind of attacks, if White people were doing this it would be all over the news. I love how the paper is at fault for publishing the race, which is relevant to the article because of the hate crime nature of this case. As if the behavior of the Blacks is excused because the paper published their race. How about Black people stop committing all the crime?"

Another student joked, "What do you call a black person in a three piece suit? The Defendant."

These comments are not reflective of a "liberal" environment that believes in seeking the truth before making judgments. Instead, they convey stereotypes and assumptions that we need to talk about to make this campus a more comfortable place for students of color.

So what about the vandalism of the "Food for Thought" posters? Did you attend the dialogue SGA sponsored to address campus climate? If you did, you would have heard the anguish and the struggle that students of color are experiencing due to the apathy, due to the lack of understanding and due to a conservative student body.

We also do not live and breathe multiculturalism, and, if we do, we must all have a great capacity for holding our breath. If you observed who participates in clubs and organizations under the OSDP (Office of Student Diversity Programs) umbrella, you would notice that the same students show up to sponsored events, participate in the clubs and promote the multiculturalism you seek. Where is the support from the rest of the student body? Our "liberal" environment is plagued by assumption, fear and discomfort around issues of race, class, sexuality, etc. that go unspoken about on campus. We cannot escape it and the "liberal" values that you speak of only work to avoid tackling these issues head on.

But you do make good points, such as the need to deconstruct Strock's hateful words. But I hope you understand that the media is powerful and it does bring out opinions that we would normally conceal. Skidmore Unofficial is a prime example, and I provide you and everyone who has not seen it with the link below. We must continue dialogue and search for this reality. Just like the larger society, our campus reflects issues of a declining nation drowning in inequality. It would serve well toward the notion of liberalism to address our discontents and set precedent for the change we need.

The link to Skidmore Unofficial: http://bit.ly/hxVCAp

Danny Pforte is a sophomore from Cambridge, Massachusetts who studies social work. He is inspired by Malcolm X, Jay-Z and Bernie Sanders.

Editorial: Ethnic diversity ends, and begins, with admissions

Posted by the Editorial Board

After a series of recent campus discussions, we are in consensus that the college has a diversity "crisis" - that we more or less have a racially homogenous student body.

From the moment we first step on campus, we can plainly see the college student body is predominately white.

This "crisis" is in part a result of our college's admissions process and the open house tours that segregate students of color from the rest of the incoming first-year class.

An obvious way to increase diversity on campus would be to simply admit more students of color into the college, but the solution is more complicated than this…

Our college admissions, unlike other peer schools like Hamilton College and Vassar College, considers whether a student can afford tuition as a part of his or her admission into the school; our college operates under "need-sensitive" admission, as opposed to "need-blind" admission.

For example, when two prospective students with the same racial backgrounds, test scores, grades and extracurriculars apply to Skidmore, the student who requests less financial aid will more likely be accepted.

This would seemingly yield a socioeconomically homogenous student body. However, according to Time Magazine's 2009 article on our admissions process, students of color "disproportionately apply for financial aid," so our admissions office accepts mostly non-minority students.

This is the unfortunate reality of our college's diversity, or lack thereof.

Ideally, Skidmore would have need-blind admissions; however, our endowment is not large enough to afford this luxury.

The college's endowment must double or triple before admissions can afford to offer need-blind admissions. Unfortunately, by the time this happens we all will have graduated. In the meantime, though, the college should focus on integrating incoming students of all races. The "Discovery Tour" in particular segregates incoming students.

Once prospective students of color are accepted, admissions invites them to the Discovery Tour, specifically for ALANA students (African American, Latino, Asian American and Native American).

On the tour, prospective students spend time almost exclusively with ALANA admissions officers, ALANA students, ALANA staff and ALANA faculty.

At the end of the Discovery Tour, ALANA students join other, mostly non-minority students, at an open house. When this ends, they are grouped back together in their ALANA group.

The Discovery Tour does not promote diversity at the college, but rather segregates students on our campus.

The first visit to college is a critical time to make new friends and relationships. We make some of our best friends at these admissions events. Separating the incoming and accepted students into groups based on race during the first visits to school is detrimental to the future diversity of campus.

We understand the intent of the Discovery Tour is to promote diversity, but diversity programs are useless unless attended by a heterogeneous group. Diversity is not defined solely by the percentage of racially diverse students on campus, but rather the degree to which students of different backgrounds interact with each other.

And these different backgrounds do not refer solely to race. Religious, intellectual, sexual and cultural diversity are of equal importance.

Thus, we propose a different type of diversity for admissions open houses and tours: academic diversity.

Students who are interested in specific disciplines and studies can go on unique tours with students who have similar interests. Prospective art students can visit the Tang Teaching and Art Museum, galleries downtown and Saisselin Art Building with primarily art students. Prospective government students can speak with Professor Beau Breslin, tour city hall and learn about government classes. The possibilities are truly limitless...

The Discovery Tour sets a bad precedent for students when they first enter this college - that students of color are separated from the rest of the student body. By eliminating this well-intentioned program, we can send a clear message to incoming students that this college promotes and fosters diversity - not just ethnic, but intellectual, sexual, etc.

Homogeneity and uniformity are antithetical to creativity, therefore if we want to live our ubiquitous college motto, we must diversify.

The rise and fall of Four Loko: Ancient American Traditions

Posted by Brian Connor

The last Four Lokos flew off the shelves and the powers-that-be patted themselves on the back for quashing yet another moral epidemic. Teenagers and college students muttered their complaints as the season of the Four Loko came to a close. Now, as our bodega coolers are restocked with a less reprehensible version of the beverage, hindsight grants us an opportunity to better understand the rise and fall of Four Loko. What should we make of this fleeting phenomenon? Should we be mourning or celebrating its demise? Despite the hype, the beverage was an ugly one and we are all better off now that it is gone, but not for the reasons you were given by the television.

Looking back now, it seems it was inevitable all along. As soon as the press got wind of it, as soon as politicians recognized its value as a pointless attention-diverting wedge issue (which, I believe, also played upon border-crazy conservative Hispanophobia), the fate of this beverage was sealed.

The story of Four Loko is an old one. Like Icarus, Four Loko flew too high, grew too big. The beverage attained heights of popularity that made it easy prey for critics. And this criticism created more buzz than the drink itself; the drink was nothing without the media phenomenon that accompanied it. Even its detractors basked in the eerie glow of this star that grew too big. Brooklyn Assemblyman Felix Ortiz drank three of the 22.5oz, 12 percent alcohol-by-volume, highly caffeinated beverages in a publicity stunt veiled as a public service announcement. In order to understand how this cultural witch-hunt was started, it's necessary to take a look at the sociology of this particular drink.

What apparently hasn't crossed the minds of the disgruntled, righteously indignant masses of Four Loko fans, is that the same buzz is and has always been available. Irish Coffee (a drink so iconic and fundamentally appealing that its name now brings to mind an image of a functional alcoholic looking for a morning buzz more than it does a beverage option) has been offering the Four Loko kick in a much more palatable form ever since Ethiopian traders first crossed paths with Gaels. This drink is so pervasive that it has even spawned a more sophisticated spin-off, the Espresso Martini.

The people purchasing Four Lokos at the "ghetto" Getty (as it is known to students) are in search of the same buzz as the young professionals sipping Espresso Martinis at Max London's, yet one poses a threat to society, and the other seems to be a testament to our society's productivity and refinement. The people drinking at Max London's are paying upwards of $10 for their cocktails, while those purchasing Four Lokos are paying $3. The distinction being drawn by the press and politicians between the cruder, cheaper substance and the more refined and cultured one, is reminiscent of the double standard applied to crack and cocaine, which has repugnant racial and class implications.

The Espresso Martini offers the exact same thing as Four Loko, but politicians and the press would never rally against Espresso Martinis. Surely, our collective cultural understandings would assure us, people who drink "Martinis" could never pose a threat to the status-quo — their ranks comprise the status-quo (despite the fact that "espresso martini" is a gigantically widespread misnomer, as is every other "‘blank'-Martini;" the word "Martini" refers to one particular mix of ingredients, 7 parts gin to 1 part dry vermouth).

When all the drinks are on the table, there are little to no differences to be observed in the effects. Yet Four Loko embodies, in the eyes of politicians and the media, a frightening lapse of control.

But the truth, the real evil behind Four Loko, is not its contents, but its degradation of a potentially wonderful and intellectually stimulating activity with a rich trans-national and multicultural history. Alcohol consumption reaches across all cultures, races, ethnicities, social classes and nationalities (with the exception of certain Islamic nations).

The use of alcohol is one of humankind's most shared and widespread characteristics, almost approaching basic bodily functions in its universality. Consequently, we are offered an almost endless multiplicity of culturally engaging means of consumption. From crude Vietnamese rice wine, to South African beer, to Dom Perignon, culturally engaging alcoholic beverages run the gamut in availability and price.

Despite the potentially culturally enriching experience that we might undertake in drinking, young people swarm to a sickly sweet and obnoxiously intoxicating, cheap, canned, energy drink. Four Loko, like Walmart or McDonalds, offers you the illusion of participating in something real, like shopping or eating, but instead gives you an obscene substitute, which leaves you queasy and reeling.

Those who lament the fall of Four Loko need only progress and forge their own mixological canon. The world of drinking is an exciting one, and Four Loko is an abomination of something that is meant to be fulfilling and curiosity-spurring. If you treat alcohol with respect and put the time and energy into making your own drink, that drink will reward you tenfold. Four Loko is gone, but you are left with much more as a result: you have your imaginations and your innate drive to experience alternative states of consciousness, and no one can take that away from you.

Brian Connor is a senior American studies major from Brooklyn who spends his summer nights at Siro's.

Editorial: It's hard to pass judgement

Posted by the Editorial Board

At the end of December most of us were far away from Skidmore slowly recovering from the unhealthy behaviors and demands of finals week, when we received an e-mail from Acting President Susan Kress informing us of an altercation involving four students at Compton's Restaurant on Dec 19. In her Dec. 22 e-mail, Kress, in a reserved manner, told the Skidmore community, "we do not yet have a full account of the incident and its aftermath." Unfortunately for an inquisitive, curious and intellectually rich student body, we still don't have the full account.

The facts first provided to us in the e-mail were "that three of the students were charged with misdemeanors. The fourth was charged with felony assault and a related hate crime stemming from his alleged use of a racial epithet during the incident." These were the facts to ponder, provided to us by our school, as we rang in the New Year. We anxiously awaited the courtroom appearances of the four students, hoping these would somehow clarify the incident over break. Then their hearing on Jan. 13 was adjourned until February.

Meanwhile, the incident assumed its role in the recent tradition of negative Skidmore press, with sensationalized reports in the community newspapers and chiding online comments from the Saratoga community.

The response from the community was at times ignorant and racist, depicting the students as "four drunken black teenage thugs," with some suggesting if "four white Skidmore students gang-[beat] a black man in Compton's, this would be headline news." Kress, in a letter to the campus on Jan. 20, wisely characterized these comments as "uncivil and biased in ways none of us should tolerate."

When we returned for the spring semester, we heard little from the administration, only to continue thinking about questions posited earlier by Kress.  

Then on Feb. 6, several prominent and well-known faculty members sent a campus-wide e-mail pledging their full support of the four students, believing they were "repeatedly misrepresented, continually marginalized, and severely misunderstood." Their defense necessitates a justification based on new facts.

But the faculty members do not provide our much-desired information. They write, "legalities mandate that we refrain from sharing the specifics of the case … it is important to note that only one perspective has been reported by the media ...."

We, therefore, must trust our faculty members, who are academically and socially close to the four accused students, and assume they know new and relevant information regarding the incident that we do not, and that these students have indeed been treated unfairly. By trusting these faculty members, we are also supporting those four students.

If we cannot trust our faculty members, then we should make no judgment regarding the students, as there simply isn't enough information to do so. Even after the students are sentenced, we still may not have new information to make an informed opinion on the students' actions that Sunday morning at Compton's Restaurant.

While we need to support our peers if they have been treated unfairly in the media and judicial system due to their race, we should not be distracted from the violence perpetrated on either side of the altercation that evening. One student in the incident has already pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge.  We need to address this, because our administration has failed to do so.

Dialogue needs to continue about racial bias and violence, which still features prominently in the community. Currently this discussion seems limited exclusively to groups of friends and clubs. We need to speak about it as a college and as members of this city, because the morning of Dec. 19 affected not just a few students, but the entire community.

Quiet the commentators: Ancient American Traditions

Posted by Brian Connor

This is truly a difficult time in the college's history. A pall has been cast over the campus and Saratoga. Members of the community are struggling to make sense of the incident, the grey area of which seems to be unending, that occurred at the end of last semester. I suspect that somewhere, in between the racist banter of local commentators and the pontificating rhetoric of administrators and faculty, the truth lies. And I believe the truth is that these students made a mistake, and not an irreparable one. The true culprits in this maddening media escapade, the true antagonists, are the sensationalist local media and the dogmatic college administration and faculty.

We have all been deeply offended by the insensitive vitriol spewing from the regional press. Carl Strock's reference to the event as "the revenge of the diversity gods" strikes deeply at everything we hold true, and demeans all of us, especially Strock himself. Many local commentators have used this case to reinforce and fuel their latent racism. But college administrators and faculty are using these misguided outbursts to fuel their own righteous indignation.

In response to this, all our leadership has offered is garbled liberal arts jargon. Where the administration's words could have guided and comforted us, we were given wordy statements about diversity.  Acting President Susan Kress wrote to the student body that, "Goal II of the College's Strategic Plan calls upon us to recognize the complexities of the multi-national, multi-racial, multi-cultural world we live in and "develop the intercultural skills necessary to affirm one another's humanity, no matter how different we might at first appear…" What are we to take away from this stock liberal arts response? How should this lofty rhetoric guide us as we attempt to make sense of this situation as it unfolds in real time downtown?

The conservative press is obfuscating the event with racially charged language, and our administration and faculty are merely deconstructing the symbolic underpinnings of the reports, and all the while the true issue, of whether or not these students will be offered the opportunity to redeem themselves, is ignored. The administration and college commentators are doing as much of a disservice to these students and our understanding of this event as the volatile press is. Danny Pforte —we need not be reminded of the fundamental tenets of our judicial system. Of course they are innocent until proven guilty. But a guilty plea is a pretty good indication that they're not entirely innocent. And what about this ‘counter-narrative' that Professor Grady-Willis asserts will emerge in court? Are we meant to believe that there is some sort of conspiracy in motion with the goal of discrediting an entire institution, multicultural philosophy and race?

I hope most of us can agree that this is not simply a racially motivated railroading by a community incapable of exacting proper justice. And it certainly is not, as some racist commentators have suggested, a case of Skidmore's chickens coming home to roost. It is simply four students who made a mistake. What is truly deplorable here is the town and the college's use of these students' mistakes as a platform to continue talking past one another, to continue to exacerbate an already inflammatory town-gown relationship. They have hijacked these students' slip-up to reprimand and admonish the other, to assert their own agendas.

I have no problem accepting these students back into our community—as long as they demonstrate commitment to our values. I believe they made a mistake, but I also believe that they have the conviction and character to make amends for this mistake. They should be given a chance to learn from this and redeem themselves in the community, an opportunity of which they are being deprived, as faculty, students and administrators blindly support them in the name of countering prejudiced injustice.

So how should we respond to all of this? I believe we know exactly where we stand. We need not be reminded that we live in a multicultural world. True Skiddies live and breath our multicultural, multiracial creed. Those that demonstrate a disregard for our community's values are dealt with appropriately by our administration (some of the time). And we certainly reject the close-mindedness and racism of local commentators. I don't think there is any talk we need to have. Let's appropriate punishment as necessary, quiet the commentary, and get back to living that liberal arts philosophy.

Brian Connor is a senior American studies major from Brooklyn who  spends his summer nights at Siro's.

The racial divide at Skidmore College: Practical Race and Diversity

Posted by Danny Pforte

When I came to Skidmore, I had no idea what to expect. Throughout high school I was never encouraged much to attend college. But I was a good student, and my girlfriend at the time urged me to apply to prestigious colleges. And after much financial aid, Skidmore happened to be the one school I could afford.

Skidmore was a shock from the beginning. I grew up in Cambridge, MA, a diverse community whose residents are of many different races and socioeconomic backgrounds. I am Asian and white, and I grew up in a lower income household. Before college, my friends reflected Cambridge's diversity. When I arrived at Skidmore, I quickly noticed that the student body consists mostly of upper-class white kids. At first, this made me feel uncomfortable.

As freshman year progressed, I befriended many students of color, and I hung out with them daily. Their companionship has taught me the importance of balancing one's social life with the rigorous academic expectations of our elite college. Furthermore, I think that their friendship has provided me with the opportunity to combat racial stereotypes that weigh so heavily upon American society.

But what I have noticed is that Skidmore does not provide the appropriate environment to foster these relationships. The white population is by far the majority, and it seems to me hypocritical that our school can advertise itself as being diverse and liberal when the reality is the opposite.

I think that the institution must further enact the diversity and liberalism that it pretends to embody. But as things stand, Skidmore's efforts to do so often don't help the situation at all. For example, only minority first-year students are invited to the diversity dinner a few days before the rest of the campus arrives. Excluding the white population from admission events such as this one — their first experience with the college — does nothing to promote a sense of community. Furthermore, singling out the minority students for special events could make them feel as though they were only admitted because of their race.

Both Skidmore faculty and students must work together to take action against the racial divide at our college. The few students and faculty working on this issue must be given our support. So if Skidmore wants a truly diverse student body, now is the time to make it a reality.

Danny Pforte is a sophomore from Cambridge, Mass. who studies social work. He is inspired by Malcolm X, Jay-Z and Bernie Sanders.

A little too liberal arts: Looking from the Left

Posted by Kate Gill

My exposure to political conservatism has been limited, to say the least. I was raised in New York City and heavily insulated against all things Republican. In high school, my education remained on the left side of the political fence. Although I knew that Skidmore was liberally inclined, I anticipated that for the first time I might come into contact with students of a different political background. But I was wrong; the atmosphere at Skidmore is, for the most part, very liberal.

Yes, there is a Young Republicans Association (SYRA) on campus, but in general, Skidmore's conservative voices are muted. The SYRA's website refers to former alumni members—rather than current students—an indication that the club has been inactive in recent months. This is not to say that I expected an East Coast liberal arts school to be crawling with Republicans, but I did hope to encounter a more politically diverse student body. Skidmore is by no means at fault; it is no secret that most, if not all, North Eastern schools lean to the left. A lack of political diversity is not so much a crime as it is a shame.

The term "diversity" is a popular favorite on college campuses. Institutions throw the word around in hopes of improving their image — we have X many students of color and Y students of such and such nationality. Without question, racial diversity is a high-ranking priority for liberal arts administrations, and often for prospective students as well. But the concept of diversity should apply to more than just race. The past ten years have not been conducive to bipartisanship. In an age of such tense political polarization, individuals now identify not only as male or female, black or white, but also as either red or blue.

College is a period of exploration, isn't it? For four years we are given the license to figure out where we stand — why we believe what we do. College is, to a certain extent, an educational and social means to a political end. Many important lessons are learned outside of the classroom; teaching can be on a peer-to-peer basis. Yet at a predominantly liberal school, most students are merely preaching to the left wing political choir. It is unfortunate that the conservative population at Skidmore does not vocalize their opinions more often. Perhaps there are more Republicans than I am aware of. But I can imagine that being an outspoken conservative is not easy at a place like Skidmore, where there's a stigma against many right wing values.

Such a phenomenon is not limited to Skidmore College: at many North Eastern schools the student population is politically homogeneous. I grew up a liberal, and I will most likely remain one. But I find I learn best when I am forced to challenge the basis of my beliefs. As students, we should become involved with all aspects of the world in which we live. I would argue that when a school refers to itself as diverse, its political alignment should be a part of this title.

Kate Gill is a liberal-minded first-year student from Manhattan.

Everybody should serve: Invest your physical self in the mortal endeavours of your country

While you were gone on break, we had four snowstorms here (made the skiers happy) and the zodiac was changed (made others way unhappy). This week makes the fifth snowstorm (more happy skiers). Also while you were gone, in Tuscon (as you know) 6 people were killed and 14 were seriously injured, including Arizona U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, in another irrational American shooting spree.

These and all events in the United States today, whether trivial or tragic, take place within a single envelope called "a nation at war," placing upon every action and activity the invisible but inescapable mark of war. Someone else is dying, perhaps at this very moment, while we are living on. Americans have been given no other role than to be by-standers while less than one half of one percent of our population does the hardest work. No matter what side of the war policy you're on, it's not a fair way to conduct any war. Until these wars end or are ended, don't we have to devise a way for all Americans to share this lop-sided burden? Otherwise, we occupy the seats reserved for "free riders."

Last Monday, with the help of some student volunteers and some expert support, the "Theater of War" staged a mock draft classification process in the atrium of the Murray-Aikins dining hall. I wanted to bring students a little closer to what it usually means to be a nation at war. This generation is the fortunate beneficiary of growing up in the age of the voluntary military. But by enjoying this de facto deferment from being drafted, the downside is that your stake in this country's policy and destiny has been reduced to practically nothing. And not just you, but all of us.

So I tried to focus students' sights on this unhealthy situation by dramatizing what if there actually were to be a draft (there won't, because the military does not want it)—how might you feel to be inducted into the military? Or rejected from it, for that matter? What if you were told your college days would be interrupted? A student or two complained about the inconvenience of being delayed for dinner. How inconvenient was that compared to the inconvenience of going to war?

In fact, you don't know for sure what our government will do when it needs more bodies for the military. This volunteer military, designed for short term purposes, has been able to fight two long-term wars only because so many re-enlist multiple times (again, how fair is that?). Sooner or later, you will be informed of another way more of you will share the sacrifice. We just heard Pres. Obama in the State of the Union Address last week actually urge institutions of higher education to open its campuses to military recruiters. How do you feel about that? Is it a good thing, because more of you will carry the military burden, or a bad thing, because it provides only for the single option of military service?

What if you were given more service options, including civic and humanitarian service? Maybe it's time to start talking about Universal National Service, where all young people between the ages of 18 and 24 would be required to choose some kind of service, like Peace Corps, Vista, Teach for America, military or others. To talk this over, I invite you to come to a Universal National Service Study Group at 8 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 8, in the ICC (postponed from earlier this week due to storm). This very kind of thing is already done in a variety of ways in different countries. We might research the idea, adapt it, improve it, and then advocate for it. Who of you would like to get a national conversation going?!

Then, to bring more of our thoughts and feelings about this together, please consider attending an hour of "Reflection about Being a Nation at War" featuring poetry, song, dance, and image contributed or performed by your fellow members of the Skidmore community at 5 to 6 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 11 in the Dance Theater.

Thoreau said he went to Walden Pond for two years simply to "front a fact," as he put it, to face the barest facts of life. Here's our chance to front another kind of fact, the mortal fact of being a nation at war. Only when we acknowledge where we are, can we go on to consider what our responsibilities as Americans today really should be.

Rick Chrisman is director of Religious and Spiritual Life, teaches occasionally in the Religion and Philosophy departments and suspects art is the one true religion.

It's a one-sided story: Practical Race and Diversity

Posted by Danny Pforte

On Saturday, Dec. 18, the police charged a Skidmore College sophomore with a felony hate crime following an assault at Compton's Restaurant. Proceedings on the case are not scheduled to begin until early to mid-January, and possibly later. The Saratogian and the New York Daily News — as well as many other media outlets — have reported on the arrest. It is reported that the crime took place at 5:30 a.m. and that the students involved may have been drinking underage. These are important community concerns that make the situation complicated. However, most coverage of the case overshadows these concerns by improperly framing the story. I write today because I am concerned that the media coverage is inaccurate and biased.

According to the Saratogian "the four men charged with assault are all black or Hispanic." They mention the hometown of each student involved (three of whom are from New York City), emphasizing that these men are "outsiders." By identifying the accused solely by their urban background and as minorities (whose actual race was left vague), the Saratogian set the stage for the backlash that came from the Saratoga community in the form of racist comments on their website:

brianjconway wrote on Dec. 21, 2010 6:21 a.m.:

"I wonder what program they are attending Skidmore under? The RAP, the BAP, the ZAP? No difference, they are all publicly funded. Trying to educate people like that is like a hen trying to hatch a rock. 10,000 years, and it won't happen."

forafact wrote on Dec. 20, 2010 8:40 p.m.:

"Can you say EOP?"

Furthermore, the Associated Press identifies the perpetrator as black, though he is Hispanic. Clearly, there is a lot of confusion surrounding the incident and this false reporting isn't helping. Another take on the story by News10 of Albany shows how complicated the case really is. A minority student from Skidmore explains her opinion on the situation: that the "black people" from Skidmore who were involved are ridiculous for acting as they did, since they are given the opportunity to disprove racial stereotypes in the setting of a prestigious college. Her comments suggest the additional pressure faced by minority students at Skidmore when faced with ethical dilemmas (getting into a fight, drinking underage, etc.). Being a minority at Skidmore can be unsettling because of the primarily white student body. Minority students feel as if they have more to prove and thus face larger consequences if they happen to make a mistake. It is the white students at Skidmore who must challenge the stereotypes portrayed in unfair media coverage. We must acknowledge the pressures on minority students and ensure that we do our part in ensuring that they are portrayed fairly and equally.

The Missing Pieces

After reading and listening to the media coverage on the case, everyone should remember that these students have only been charged, not convicted, and that the accused have not given their perspectives and are unlikely to do so before they go to court. They are innocent until proven guilty. Skidmore students should not let what the police, those pressing charges and the media say stir up the same racially charged sentiments that the Saratoga community has already expressed in response to the Saratogian article.

Of course, I am not condoning the actions that may or may not have happened that morning at Compton's. I am simply concerned that prejudices against Hispanics and African-Americans seem to be prevalent in this community, and I hope that Skidmore students will rise above such misguided judgments. I hope that those interested in promoting social justice will meet together to discuss the many issues surrounding this case to clear up the confusion. We have an opportunity to challenge racial stereotypes and recollect ourselves as an open-minded liberal community. Let this case be a calling.

Danny Pforte is a sophmore from Cambridge, Mass. who studies social work. He is inspired by Malcolm X, Jay-Z and Bernie Sanders.

Bias incidents are not "punchlines": Campus Banter

Posted by Taylor Dafoe

A couple of days ago I heard someone tell a joke to a friend. The setup was normal — a couple of multiracial characters, maybe a blond girl saying something moronic — and the punch line even more predictable: the typical racist remark. But that wasn't the interesting part. After it was told, the joke-teller's friend responded by saying "bias incident," and they both laughed.

It's true, the phrase "bias incident" is becoming a staple one-liner on campus, a punchline to some awful, racist or sexist or anything-ist joke about people walking into a bar or something. But this is not a joke; this is serious.

The alleged events at the end of this past semester, whether true or not, brought to a climax an issue that had been stirring all semester. It's one that has been a part of campus conversations and stupid jokes and pictures of penises on whiteboards for months. It's a problem that's been overshadowed by bigger, well-publicized national events that have occurred recently.

And with the wide-reaching nature of this issue, our college campus is, of course, at the heart of it. But that in no way vindicates us here at Skidmore. In fact, we're very much at blame here. We're making national headlines again, this time for our bigotry. And it's starting to catch up with us. We're chopping away at the prestige of our school's name, turning it into a sort of joke itself and laughing the whole time. We're probably one of the "funniest" campuses in the country right now.

The definition of bias is certainly a little ambiguous — not to mention totally subjective — and it's something that's almost impossible to monitor. Realistically, telling people to not do or say things that might offend anybody would only prevent them from doing it in public. However, that's obviously not the problem (I would hope that most people would have the sensibility to not do so anyway). No, first it needs to stop at the source: the individuals responsible for such narrow-mindedness.

But that's not all we need to do. I think there's a bigger problem at play here: the general campus attitude toward "bias incidents." Maybe you've seen all the posters hung around campus talking about bias incidents, or heard about the countless clubs meant to address the issue. Maybe you've attended one of the teach-ins. But none of that really matters anymore. The irony of the issue is that, in a way, we're all responsible, even the victims.

It's the college. It's the community. It's a weird way of life that for some reason seems to be OK, even seems to be normal. But we need to change. We need to fix the outlook of the campus, and to condemn such an intolerant mindset. Our reputation is at stake now, teetering precariously on the edge of an issue that is much larger than our small school, its privileged students and the sleepy little town of Saratoga.

So let's head this one off at the pass, clean our minds, bite our tongues and restore our reputation as being open-minded. This has already been a rough year for Skidmore; let's not make it any worse.

Taylor Dafoe is an undecided sophomore from Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Close the gap between college and country: Politics for the Upstate Student

Posted by Julia Grigel

College and military are meant to be separate entities — or aren't they? Barack Obama recently urged American colleges to open their doors to military recruitment officers and ROTC — or Reserve Officers' Training Corps — a program that helps students to finance their college education in return for a few years of military commitment after college. This follows Congress's repeal of the discriminatory Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy in December of last year. The few colleges that have refused to allow students to pursue an ROTC program in the past did so in protest of the anti-gay and lesbian policy.

President Obama's January 25 State of the Union Address was given in a spirit of bipartisanism, and encouraged cooperation and compromise. The statement on ROTC and military recruiters in American colleges was nestled in between Obama's commitment to finalize and implement the repeal of DADT (note the characteristically stoic response from the joint chiefs of staff), and his reassuring statement that despite the messiness of our version of democracy "there isn't a person here who would trade places with any other nation on Earth." It was a good assumption, given that he was addressing a room full of U.S. government employees.

Until this point in Obama's speech, I had been half listening, half reading "The Prince." But Obama's one-line statement got me to throw Machiavelli aside in protest: "I call on all our college campuses to open their doors to our military recruiters and ROTC." Military recruiters and ROTC at Skidmore!?! It seems as though militarizing colleges would be like taking the arts, strapping them to a missile, launching it, spitting and then doing 500 victory push ups. Right?

Maybe not. Sure, college is about intellectual expansion, the pursuit of higher knowledge, the embrace of creativity. But does that mean we must attempt to be far removed from the concrete reality that is the military? Must we shun this reality from our campus in passive protest? Must we deny access to military recruiters because of our unease with the scope of the military?

In short: absolutely not. We should be aware, sometimes painfully so, of our nation's military endeavors. Our country's defense budget is the largest in the world, making up about 43 percent of worldwide military expenditures. About 1.5 million U.S. citizens serve actively in the military, with nearly another million in the reserves. The U.S. is fighting wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq and has troops stationed in more than 100 countries worldwide.

Obama's statement is a clear sign toward an extension of the olive branch, either from the armed forces to the colleges, or vice versa (or, hopefully, both). Of course, that doesn't mean we should simply approve of the military; we should be aware of the fact that our nation's military industrial complex has grown to a size that would have made Eisenhower vomit. We are all in some way part of the educated elite, and it is our responsibility to remain informed and awake. Our campus should, as Obama urges, open its doors to ROTC and military recruitment officers, so that the issue of the military can be part of our public discourse at Skidmore.

But most colleges' doors are already are open to the ROTC. Even at Skidmore, a student can pursue ROTC if he or she chooses, although most of us are unaware of it. Skidmore students can cross-register with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) or Siena College, where there are ROTC centers. Only one current Skidmore student is in ROTC right now — she has taken classes at Siena and now does physical training at RPI — and there has been only one other Skidmore student to pursue an ROTC program in the past. The option to take part in ROTC is simply not a big draw for most Skidmore students: the majority of Skidmore students never really consider joining the armed forces.

And should they? Not if they don't want to, of course. But the divide between the highly educated elites of our nation and the military is as detrimental as it is long-standing. Both sectors hold prejudices against one another; neither sector really wants or knows how to co-exist with the other. Since the end of the draft in 1973, the gap between the military and everybody else has become dangerously large, and this divide may be biggest for our generation, which has never seen a draft. Other than the few people that most of us know who are actually involved in the military, we have essentially no direct exposure to the reality of it.

So who is really responsible for making ROTC more accessible? It is the military's responsibility, as well as colleges'. After the repeal of DADT, colleges have no more reason to reject recruiters and ROTC programs. However, the military also must step up its commitment to reach out to institutions of higher education. Since the military absorbs much of the cost of education for its ROTC students, it is (understandably) hesitant to open up programs at expensive schools, despite the schools' academic prestige and rigour.

However, if Obama is serious about improving relations between our soldiers and the nation's future policymakers and civilian commanders, he should acknowledge the double-sidedness to the relationship. The armed forces would be wise to embrace the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell as an opportunity to turn a new leaf and forge a stronger relationship with colleges, and our president would be wise to require that they do so.

Julia Grigel is a senior government major who enjoys politics, especially when they're reactionary and/or German.

Editorial: The end of marsupial mayhem

Posted by the Editorial Board

Students thought of the college's Ultimate Frisbee team as an unofficial campus fraternity. For 20 years, first-years had happily signed up for the Wombats' hazing, keg practices and raucous spring break team trip. So when the SGA Executive Board de-chartered the club for repeatedly and egregiously breaking the college's Honor Code, the words on everyone's lips should be not, "why?" but, really, "It's about time."

On their first day at the college, every student pledged to uphold the college's Honor Code; on their first night at the college, most students happily enjoyed their first Honor Code violation. But to create a club culture based on violating the Honor Code unapologetically and at every opportunity, as the Wombats have, is to understand that your club is vulnerable to the very first instance of those violations coming to administrative attention. At some point, the college can't look the other way.

The people who police our campus, from Campus Safety officers to our SGA representatives, have long kept a polite blind eye to the club's indiscretions. But when evidence of club-wide expellable offenses starts appearing in lecture halls and administrative inboxes, our campus leaders have no other recourse but to respond accordingly with disciplinary action.

As seen in the regulatory action taken toward other aspects of the college's campus life, from the community-affirming 4/20 to the drunken fun of Moorebid Ball, there comes a point at which a tacit tradition becomes too public to ignore.

The exploits of the Wombats have become a campus institution, a piece of what makes Skidmore unique. It's easy to understand why students might mourn the loss, but when it comes to assigning responsibility for the club's disbandment, the blame doesn't lie with the SGA officers who made the decision. It falls, instead, to the club members who made it impossible for their governing body to respond in any way but severely.

The members of the Wombats can still throw around a Frisbee on the green. But when they go on this year's annual spring break trip, it will be their own money that they're spending – not their piece of every student's tuition. We look forward to seeing a wiser Ultimate Frisbee team on campus next year.

Make your punishments uniform

Posted by Brian Connor

There is an under-discussed problem at this school that the administration would like you not to think or talk about. The administration won't conduct town-hall meetings about this problem, and there will not be awareness drives to confront it. This problem is deeply rooted within the administration itself. It is the fallaciousness of our disciplinary system, which rears its ugly head to enforce a vicious double standard upon the student body. This problem has been increasingly infuriating me since my very first semester.

When I was a first-year, about two weeks into my college-career, two friends and I lit a newspaper on fire on the concrete staircase to Scribner Village and videotaped it. Several weeks later I accidentally misplaced my camera somewhere on campus while working on a documentary for my Scribner Seminar. When I went to Campus Safety, our acting lost and found, to retrieve it, I was ushered into the back of the office and began the first of a series of long discussions about my apparently "egregious" offense.

The discussions continued at the Office of Residential Life. My classmates and I were given a date to appear at the Integrity Board. We were told that our punishment would most likely come in the form of a letter of apology to the community we'd supposedly offended. Not understanding the severity of the situation, none of us prepared for the IB. Why should we? It was a childish act of vandalism at worst, a stunt borne of boredom and frustration with a cliquey social scene largely impenetrable for new students,

We sat through the humiliating IB meeting, at which we were told that our actions were "egregiously offensive" and "dangerous." After 3 hours of excruciating condemnation and assault upon our characters, we were told that we were suspended for one semester. This was about the most painful and confidence-shaking experience a new student can be subjected to. What better way is there to make new students feel unwelcome? In spite of all the cushiony rhetoric of the first-year experience program, we were now being suspended for lighting a campfire. We appealed and received 50 hours of community service in lieu of suspension.

Whatever confidence I had in the administration and our disciplinary system was shattered and has never been restored. Since that awful experience in my first semester, in which I was essentially suspended for a prank by an administration that claims to implement restorative justice, I have seen some things that just make me furious.

In my time at Skidmore, four Hockey players gang-beat another student after breaking into his house; they all finished the semester and graduated. Students who allegedly sexually assaulted their fellow students are still walking among us. Students selling pot were suspended for one semester while students who assaulted locals in downtown restaurants are defended and are likely to be welcomed back into the community. Members of a college club assailed other college's students with sexist chants, broke into their property, and are welcomed back to our campus.

There is a gaping and fundamental injustice in this community that nullifies and sullies every liberal value we claim to uphold, every discussion forum about equality, and every conversation between students about community. The inconsistency of the administration's disciplinary actions is this college's great stain.

Warriors, come out to pray: Daydreams

Posted by Rick Chrisman

Jesus says in one of the Gospels, "The poor you always have with you." He might better have said, "War you always have with you." It would have been just as true, and more helpful. I wish he had. Heck, we would have been forewarned!

War is not just hell (as anyone could guess), it is persistent and pervasive in history. War, and its kissing cousins the police state and conformity, provide the violent with the means to get their way. Jesus repeatedly attacked the temptation to meet that violence with more violence when he said, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who maltreat you." To one philosopher, these preachments were the signs of a "slave religion." But they were Jesus' way of saying, violence is everywhere  — beware of being sucked into it.

And here we are, sucked into violence big time. Not one but two wars, in two different countries, each eight and seven years long, and counting. 4747 and 2250 U.S. military deaths each, and counting (this number does not include stateside veteran deaths by suicide.)  The wounded in Iraq, according to official counts, comes to 32,937, and counting. (Unofficial estimates put the number much higher). If these numbers seem only like abstractions to you, join the club. Try multiplying 40,000 times your brother or your sister.

And who can say for sure what the total number of civilian casualties in both countries might be? Imagine what living in a war zone that long would do to a society (examples are on display in the Wilson Chapel picture gallery).  Likewise, do we ever contemplate what this is doing to American society?

Yes, as a nation, we have been totally sucked into violence and don't know it. It's not just a matter of our war policy. America bathes unaware in our own war culture. That is hard to see. What would you guess is the minimum daily dose of violence ingested by kids playing video games? What are all those cops and robbers on TV today doing but entertaining us and fighting proxy wars? We re-enact the immemorial battle between good and evil on screen and praise the successful hero. And how did he (she) win the day? Always, the violent bear it away.

This is wrong, and our attempts to hide from it proves the point. We ignore the violence and deny being at war because the soul recoils. War is inhumane — and inconvenient, to say the least. Its true costs must be buried, and we do a great job of that.

Isn't it time for the citizens to take charge, or is that just a daydream? The truth is, the U.S. citizenry has been de-clawed.  And we are paying a huge, huge price for it. Great numbers voted in the 2008 national election, but it takes more than voting to effect change. You could say we need the spiritual equivalent of a full court press on our politics. In my Christmas dream, three ghosts confront and challenge me:

1. To acknowledge the costs.  Sebastian Junger's book, "War" (recently made into a documentary film entitled "Restrepo"), urges us to reckon openly with the fact of our wars. "That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders." I ask, what public ritual could give appropriate expression to this on our campus?

2. To study war no more — study universal national service instead.  Isn't it time we conceived a fairer recruitment policy? Shouldn't everyone have an opportunity to serve, whether it be in the military, the Peace Corps, inner city education, health services, etc.? Wouldn't that give everyone (particularly in your demographic) a greater stake in this country's policies? One Skidmore student sends me by e-mail her interviews of citizens who participated in universal service in her home country of Spain. I ask, can't we study up on this more?

3. To get religion — but be sure to make it a good one. A religion, any religion, is the practice of a discipline.  It takes discipline to sacrifice violence. I say, let's practice.

Rick Chrisman is director of Religious and Spiritual Life, teaches occasionally in the Religion and Philosophy departments and suspects art is the one true religion.

Contemplate life outside the bubble: Campus Banter

Posted by Taylor Dafoe

As classes comes to an end, slowly fading away in that familiar, caffeine-induced haze of evaluations and finals and all-nighters, I can't help but wonder how this semester is going to be remembered. What will we think?

Maybe it'll go down as the semester with all the freshmen - the one with the overflowing dorms and all those triples fighting over the top bunk and the TV, probably so they could watch the newest episode of "Glee". Maybe it'll be remembered for the drunken disasters of Moorebid – for the campus damages, the ambulances and the endless cans of Four Loko. Maybe it'll be the semester the field hockey team went to the Final Four, or the semester Zankel opened or the semester that Glotzbach was gone, witness to only some of these events.

Or maybe it won't be remembered for any of these things; maybe they mean nothing to you.

We talk so much about the Skidmore "bubble," the idea that we're locked perpetually in this tiny college and tiny town, that you would think we would have the drive to do something about it. Our lives are defined by the walls that make up our little world here on campus that often we forget about that world outside Skidmore and Saratoga. We forget about issues that aren't on the chalkboard and about things that make us happy. And all those trips to the dining hall and textbooks rotting away in the bottom of our backpacks - they're only making it worse.

We need to reevaluate ourselves as college students. Our school is far too dominated by these warped notions of college life – ideas that have us killing ourselves with books during the week and with beer on the weekends.  We need to reconsider why we're here, what we're doing here and what we're going to do in the future – how we're going to spend our years here at Skidmore.

Keep this in mind as you're taking your last tests and writing your last papers. Don't get too consumed by any one aspect of your Skidmore experience, not the classes nor the parties. Remember that stress is fleeting and that homework gets finished. Remind yourself that this is merely a moment of your life, not the whole thing.

So this winter break, think about all these things. Think about what it's like to be home again, away from dorms and classrooms and the library – away, finally, from our campus. Take in a little bit of the outside world and bring it back with you. Let's make next semester worth remembering, worth the nostalgia for college that will inevitably come in the years following graduation  – the years in that real world.

Happy semester, everybody. Good luck with finals.

Taylor Dafoe is an undecided sophomore from Cheyenne, Wyo.

Editorial: Give sophomores direction

Posted by the Editorial Board

The "sophomore slump" sees students adjusting to new social situations, making significant academic decisions and taking more challenging classes – all without the aid of any sophomore-specific college assistance. Without the structure of the First-Year Experience or the certainty of declared majors, students can feel lost trying to navigate potential courses and disciplines. The college needs to institute academic programming specific to sophomores to provide a foundation for a year that has yet to take shape at Skidmore.

Just as first-years have the FYE, juniors study abroad and seniors post-graduate planning, sophomores need a cornerstone experience that can provide class unity and purpose. The college should consider forming a class-wide sophomore project that encourages students to investigate individual areas of interest through interning, research or a community service project. Challenge students to apply what they have learned in their first two years here, letting students better understand their own academic interests. That will only help them choose their majors more wisely at the end of the sophomore year.

For students interested in fulfilling this new sophomore requirement in a familiar form, the college should offer 200-level interdisciplinary classes similar to the first-year Human Dilemmas course. With the positive response to the Scribner Seminar model in the FYE, the college should look at how to utilize that success to beat the problem of the "sophomore slump." They can help those students still feeling lost in their sophomore year by offering them another chance to engage with their peers and a professor in a more close-knit environment.

But even as they seek to unify the fractured and disoriented sophomore class through new models, the college needs to better the structures already in place. As students transition from their assigned Scribner Seminar adviser to their choice of a major adviser, they can feel isolated in the very months where they must make the kind of decisions – like major declaration – that will have a profound influence on their college and post-graduation lives.

The college should strengthen and standardize the advising sessions between Scribner Seminar advisers and their sophomore advisees, ensuring that their conversations tackle the tough issues of major declaration, impending academic deadlines and resources for help. Eliminate the crapshoot element to post-FYE advising and make sure that students, even if they go through much of sophomore year without an adviser from their area of interest, can speak productively with professors about their academic futures in the sophomore year.

While material on the college's website deals particularly with challenges faced by students in their sophomore year, the sheer amount of online content can overwhelm students trying to narrow their focus in major declaration. The college should consider providing options for undecided students to perform degree audits with potential majors in mind, to evaluate their course choices and see potential planning for their next two years. They should also continue to try to increase awareness of tools like the degree audit, battling a still-steady number of students who do not know resources like these exist.

In that vein, all department offices should offer printed guides to the majors available to querying students, with information ranging from course checklists to professor profiles. Let students get to know their prospective disciplines by providing them with the contact information for each department's student representatives, giving them a real idea of what that major would entail.

Sophomore year sees students adjusting, for the first time, to making big decisions for themselves. The college needs to provide students with a strong foundation to their year, while encouraging across-the-board effective communication to ensure that students make choices right for them.

Editorial: Make library competitive

Posted by the Editorial Board

In the past Scribner Library has played host to mobs of panicked students during the last weeks of the semester, but this year is different. Increasing academic challenges and a growing student body crowd more desks for longer hours. For the library to continue serving the campus as well as it has in previous years, administrators need to come up with creative solutions to keep up with increasing use of the library.

Throughout most of the semester, the library perfectly meets studying demands. Cozy window seats and partitioned desks let students immerse themselves in their work, while study groups find homes in study rooms and a social first floor. Exhibits and the Special Collections Room make the building a location for purposes other than writing papers, and the students employed at the Office of Information Technology and the Writing Center provide help to their peers throughout the year.

But during the most academically demanding weeks of the semester these services only go so far. During these weeks the library needs to do more than just close the doors an hour later at night. They should pilot a semester-long program of leaving just the first floor of the library open all night during midterms and finals weeks, accommodating the many students who would utilize late-night access to computers and printers. We predict that if given a chance, a plan like this would see desks filled until far later than 2 a.m.

Instead of locating the Office of Student Academic Services in the distant and administrative Barrett Center, students should be able to find peer tutors right where and when they study. Administrators can replace one of the building's arbitrarily placed classrooms with space devoted to SAS and begin to employ students on-call during evening hours for their peers' department-specific needs, augmenting the increasingly overbooked Writing Center.

With student demand for study rooms always high – and, at this time of year, reaching a fever pitch – administrators should reconsider placing department offices in a building already bursting at the seams. They should look to relocate the incongruously placed Art History Department, repurposing those offices and classrooms to better suit students' needs.

For students experiencing undue amounts of stress during this time of year, a trained student or professional counselor should be available to help until the library closes. The college should not only help students in distress between nine and five, five days a week. Having counseling services available at night for those students in need will ensure that, at this time of year, students are not alone in moments in crisis.

But the changes that could help the library more effectively serve students do not have to entail large-scale changes of rearranging space and paying new staff. The college could further promote collaborative and supportive learning by encouraging students to advertise casual study sessions on the downstairs white board, so that any classmates might feel comfortable stopping in for a quick question. They should consider covering the walls with a constantly evolving cycle of pieces by the college's talented artists, rather than arbitrarily chosen pieces from the college's art collection. The library might even consider installing options for refreshments – be they as exciting as a late-night coffee bar or as mundane as a vending machine – to accommodate the hundreds of students studying late into the night.

These are the weeks where the library emblemizes the academic engagement and commitment to learning that makes the college increasingly competitive among fellow liberal arts institutions. The college needs to listen to students now, more than ever, and make the changes that will facilitate, rather than impede, those students' academic success.

Quality control, not polity control: Talking Points

Posted by Tyler Reny

Have you heard the new gem from Roger Ailes? During an interview with the Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz, Ailes went off the rails, calling the executives of an opposing news organization, "Nazis," with a "kind of Nazi attitude," who "don't want any other point of view." No, ironically, Ailes is not an angry liberal berating Fox News. He is the chairman of Fox News, fuming at NPR over its recent high profile firing of Juan Williams.

At the time of his discharge, Williams was working both as an opinion commentator for Fox and a senior news analyst for NPR. He apparently overstepped his boundaries on the Bill O'Reilly show in late October when he proclaimed that Muslim men wearing traditional garb on airplanes worried him. While it would possibly break egalitarian social norms to admit it, I would guess that the vast majority of Americans would agree with Williams' statement.

What troubles me is not Williams' words but NPR's poor choice of action. While Williams may be the world's dullest news analyst, and may deserve to be fired, NPR's attempt to maintain political correctness thrust it into the spotlight and allowed conservative bloggers, politicians and Fox to portray the organization as something it is not – a partisan news organization that silences opposing points of view.

Fox News immediately offered Williams a sordid 2 million dollars to provide more of his dull opinions and to prove that Fox is both "fair and balanced" and morally superior to NPR. Ailes then went on a media stint to sell Fox's moral superiority by making the level headed and not-at-all-over-the-top Nazi comparisons (never mind that fascism is a radical right-wing ideology).

The spat couldn't be occurring at a worst time. NPR has been bogged down recently in an ongoing spat with Glenn Beck, the alcoholic-cum-mormon-cum-libertarian-entertainer-cum-religious-crusader, over money that George Soros, the billionaire liberal philanthropist, gave to the network. In addition to the $1.8 million dollar gift to NPR, Soros gave Media Matters, a media fairness watchdog group, $1 million to hold Fox accountable for the "false and misleading information they so often show." As if Soros' contribution wasn't enough ammo to prove NPR's "liberal bias," the Williams firing made him so giddy he almost cried…again.

Conservative politicians, ever a fan of Beck's programming, agree. Last week, House Republicans' first action after returning from break was a vote to de-fund the network. Thankfully, Democrats overrode the attempt. Eric Cantor, part of the Republican House leadership, cited NPR's actions as proof of its liberal bias. While fighting to cut funding for NPR has been popular ever since the Nixon administration, the conservative Tea Party base is again lighting fires below Republican leadership to cut the flow of tax dollars to the "liberal mouthpiece."

Nobody, except for maybe Rachel Maddow, ever points out the fact that NPR's bias tends to reflect who is in power in Washington. An independent watchdog group, FAIR, did a study of NPR programming in 2003, and actually found that Republican sources outnumbered Democratic sources by 3 to 2, capturing the top seven spots in frequency of appearances. I imagine that if the study was done today, they would find that Democratic sources would outnumber Republican sources.

NPR is built around gathering and analyzing the news, rather than using it as a springboard for opinions and commentary, as both Fox and MSNBC do today. We need to recognize this crucial distinction and help prevent Congressional Republicans from cutting quality programming. Democrats in Congress will hopefully continue to stymie efforts to de-fund NPR and they deserve our full support.

While NPR clearly should have just let Williams's contract expire and avoid this whole controversy, it didn't. Fox News won. Juan Williams got a massive paycheck. And the media got a new controversy to report. Let's hope it stops there. I don't want NPR to disappear. What if I have car troubles and Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers are gone? Glenn Beck certainly couldn't answer my automotive questions.

Tyler Reny is a senior government major who enjoys good food politics and jazz.