Letter: Losing My Religion?

Posted by Douglas PIlawa

Dear Editor,

This is a reflection on and response to last week's editorial concerning religion and its place on campus.

My first day of school at Skidmore College marked a moment in my education that was radically different than before. It was the first time I attended class in casual clothing - not a uniform. It was the first time I did not start a class with prayer. It was the first time that I did not have at least one nun as a teacher. Before Skidmore College, I attended a very strict, conservative school run by the sisters of Notre Dame. Not only was my schooling Catholic, but also, I was raised in a Polish-Catholic family. Even my town, Chesterland, Ohio, was focused around St. Anselm's Church. I have been baptized, received reconciliation, had my first communion, and I've been confirmed. I am a Catholic, and I will continue to be Catholic. 

Yet, as my freshman year progressed, I noticed certain remarks or generalizations regarding my faith. For example, a classic line I heard when explaining my educational background was, "Were you brainwashed?" Or even the more lewd and obscene comments like, "Did a priest molest you?" Obviously, the latter was said in a joking manner - though it still stung.

I could not decide if I should take offense to such ignorant, and stupid remarks. For the most part, I shut my mouth. What was becoming alarmingly clear was the misunderstanding of Catholicism - given its recent debacles concerning homosexuality, birth control, and molestation cases against priests. I personally believe it is this misunderstanding that allows people to easily dismiss a religion like Catholicism. I am lucky enough to have some sense of the history of the Church, and I have seen the good that religion can do. Yet, I would venture to guess that people (like those who made comments about my faith) only notice the Catholic Church when it makes the news. 

I often wonder how many people have actually read a good portion of the Bible. To most Catholics, it's not some enormous doctrinal text that illustrates the best way to go to heaven - it's more like a huge novel. Why else would we have a class at Skidmore called "The Bible as Literature," taught by Regina Janes? I'm sure she discusses the poetics of the Gospel of John, or the beauty of the Psalms. Pick up the Book of Revelations and get lost in the insanity of an apocalypse - it's like a scene out of a bad trip.

It's clear that religion is misunderstood at Skidmore College. And to be perfectly honest, I consider this lack of awareness to be a huge deficit to students. 

Almost every day in one of my classes here, religion becomes part of the discussion. I was actually one of the students in the John Donne class and it was my favorite course throughout my entire year abroad. My research paper was, "John Donne: Irreverent Poetry." It was an analysis of Donne's "apparent" irreverence in his work. It consisted of a historical outline of the Church in Donne's time, as well as how he implemented his own problems with the Church in his poetry. My religion helped me in that class. Even my thesis, the culmination of an English Major's work at Skidmore, was entitled "Catholicism and Ulysses: The Place of the Roman Catholic Church in 1904 Dublin." Once again, I researched the major events of the Catholic Church in the 19^th and 20^th centuries of Ireland, and examined how they manifest themselves in the novel. 

Right now, I'm taking Susannah Mintz's course on Milton - you can imagine how much fun I have in that class. What I am getting at is how much religion is a part of a Skidmore student's academic life. My studies in English and in French literature have shown me even more that religion is just as important to writers as Classics and History. More often than not, all three blend together - as they do in Milton's Lycidas.

I'm not suggesting that students should immediately research the history of all religions. What I am suggesting, however, is to understand that religion is extremely complex and extremely personal. I am a Catholic. But, I am liberal. I am pro-choice, and I accept homosexuality. I believe in evolution, and I believe in heaven. Like myself, many Catholics will tell you that, no matter what, it's the personal relationship with God that matters.  

Douglas Pilawa

Class of 2012

Letter: Classic Advice for a Bacchanal (Updated)

Posted by Dan Curley

Dear Editor,

How glad I am to be on a campus with an active and strong LGBTQ community! I read with interest your Facebook advertisement for your upcoming party, the Bacchanal, and I have every wish that the event will be a success. It's been a long time coming, and you deserve it.

That said, as a public service to any and all groups that have had or will have the notion of hosting classical-antiquity-themed events, here are some ground rules to follow from now until the end of time.

(1) The Greeks did not wear togas, especially not Greek gods. You're thinking of the Romans. Please do not ever associate "Greeks" and "togas" again. If, however, you want to advertise your party with the catchphrase, "We put the TOGA in Saratoga," go ahead. You're welcome.

(2) The word "Bacchanal" is, ultimately, a Latin word, derived from the name of the god Bacchus. Bacchus, as you seem to be aware, was the god of wine and of partying in general. (Though there is more to him than that.) However, since he's more famous as a Roman god, it's very unlikely that Greek gods would show up to his party. Hence, please encourage your attendees to unleash their inner Venus (the Roman Aphrodite) instead -- if she must be unleashed in public and all that.

(3) Apollo is an exception to this rule, since Apollo's Roman name is also Apollo. So encouraging folks to unleash their inner Apollo at a Bacchanal is fine -- provided that you remember he is a god of enlightenment rather than drunken revelry. In fact, he's usually so busy providing oracles, making prophecies, and healing the sick, that I doubt he has time for too many parties. Hence, unleashing one's inner Apollo at a Bacchanal might not be the thing, unless you're looking to end the party. That bright orb that stings your eyes the morning after and calls you back to reason? THAT'S Apollo. Invite him at your own risk.

(3a) Also, the laurel wreath is Apollo's emblem. Hence, when you urge your prospective audience to "think laurel wreaths," you are in fact inviting them to behave like Apollo. (See my remarks under number 3, above.) Please encourage them to "think ivy wreaths" instead: ivy is Bacchus' plant.

(4) You do know that you have a picture of Mercury in the upper left-hand corner of the Bacchanal Facebook page, right? Just checking. On the one hand, he's an apt messenger to get the word out about your event. On the other hand, when you call your event the Bacchanal, it's a little jarring not to see Bacchus himself, or at least his minions: a satyr here, a maenad there. I've mentioned ivy. Consider also a leopard or a stalk of fennel topped with what looks like a pine cone. Or a deer being torn to pieces. If tonight you're going to party like it's 99, then please at least use the appropriate iconography. I'll be watching for the posters.

(5) Thank you in advance for not using Greek sigmas (our s-equivalent) as the letter E to make things look more Greeky and stuff. You know: GR??KY. Don't do that. (You didn't.) It is rumored that such offenses against the language will cause Alexander the Great to rise from the dead and take names. That wouldn't be so bad -- especially if he came looking like Colin Farrell or even Richard Burton -- but (pro tip) you really don't want to hedge your bets when Alex is in one of his moods. For instruction in the proper usage of Greek letters, I invite everyone to take CG 110: Elementary Greek this fall.

(6) So far, I've dished out what I hope will be perceived as good-natured snark. But let me be serious for a moment. Here is perhaps the most important rule of all for any Bacchanal, and one the Greeks and the Romans understood very well: nothing in excess. Forget what you've seen on Spartacus: Blood and Sand or HBO: Rome. To truly shatter some stereotypes, have a party that remains safe in all senses of the word. Safe for people to be themselves without judgment, and safe for everyone's health and well-being. We the faculty and staff (if I can say it myself) care more about your safety and your sanity than you might imagine. This is our campus, too.

(7) Did I mention that the Greeks did not wear togas?

Your compliance with the above rules will be appreciated, both now and in perpetuity.

Wishing you a safe and sound Bacchanal,

Dan Curley

Associate Professor and Chair

Classics Department

Editorial: Appreciating religion at a secular college

Posted by the Editorial Board

In the latest edition of The Princeton Review, Skidmore is listed 19 of the top 20 schools with the "least religious students." Clarifying this description, the subtitle of the list playfully states that the attendants of schools such as Skidmore "ignore God on a regular basis."

Hyperbole aside, do we recognize this as an accurate picture of our campus in our daily lives here at Skidmore?

Though we are certainly not a college that seeks to marginalize its religious population, Skidmore does possess a noticeably quieter presence of any religious impulse than many other American liberal arts colleges.

As far as academics are concerned, Skidmore does not demand the grounding in philosophy and theology required at, say, a Jesuit school such as Boston College or Fordham University. We are a non-sectarian institution, which thereby generally allows for a more overtly secular curriculum.

Beyond academics, this aspect of Skidmore seems to place religion in a secure but quiet, - and, to some, invisible - spot within our campus culture. The Wilson Chapel, for example, is certainly there, but hosts just as many musical and community events as explicitly religious services, if not more. Our commitment to pluralism and diversity is more than institutional and seems to characterize our clubs from the bottom up; even the college gospel choir is non-denominational.

The liberal arts curriculum, of course, finds its history and origin in the religious tradition of the West, and Skidmore College itself was founded and originally run by deeply devout Christian educators. We might, then, ask the question: having grown into a school that attracts and sustains the interest of chiefly secularized young Americans, are we diluting, or drifting from, any elements of the liberal arts experience?

This is not to ask whether our College should cater toward a different demographic or embark on a divinizing mission. The issue is more pedagogical, and might be best illustrated through an example.

Last year, studying abroad in Paris, a group of Skidmore students took a course on the work of English poet John Donne. Far away from Skidmore's soil, our peers were expected to have background knowledge of the deep cultural and historical roots of Donne's devotional poetry - but our distance from such ideas was immediately apparent. The class simply did not have any strong consciousness either of the Bible or the history of Western Christianity that is required to understand not only Donne, but other giants such as Chaucer, Milton and Shakespeare.

In this way one of Skidmore's premier courses of study, English, can be limited by our unfamiliarity and lack of exposure to the overwhelming influence of religion and faith on the human mind and heart. That group of students in Paris did not discover this until they had left campus - but we might find a way to address this disconnect without sending our peers abroad.

Perhaps the grounding in theology and history of tradition offered at, say, Jesuit schools has less to do with inculcating faith and much more to do with providing a common point of cultural and scholarly reference, in the form of religious texts. Our status as a secular school makes such a point of reference no less desirable, as the example above illustrates.

As a school striving to foster and account for rich diversity, we understandably shy away from "canonizing" any particular set of texts; but it was only a few years ago that the English department offered a course titled "Evolving Canon." This was not a way to exclude certain cultures and customs, either academically or socially, but a way to teach the texts and traditions that underpin central aspects or our curriculum, whether in literature, philosophy, anthropology or sociology.

Following this train of thought - whether discussing our curriculum or simply creating a more open space for religious observance - would be a way to ensure that we can be proud of our own identity as a secular and diverse school, while making sure we are not missing out on any element of the liberal arts tradition.

Letter: Integrate Campus Tours

Posted by Matthew Choi, Class of 2014

Dear Editor,

It's spring time and as tours are wandering around campus I'm reminded of Skidmore's strange approach to diversity.  Your average Skidmore tour is almost always overwhelmingly white, while every now and then a tour comes along that is almost completely non-white.  These non-white tours are lovingly dubbed "Diversity Tours." What is the message here? Why is there a special tour for the "Diversity?" Skidmore already suffers from de facto segregation, why are we instilling it in people before they even officially enroll? 

The message you send when you have all the Black, Asian, and Latino students on their own tours is that they are somehow different and separate from the larger community.  The intentions of the Diversity Tours are certainly benevolent, and I'm not arguing for the Diversity or OSDP programs to end, but integrate the damn tours. Black, Asian, and Latino students already tend to be separated from the larger community, don't set the groundwork for that during the admissions process.

Matthew Choi

Class of 2014

Letter: Fund Late Night

Posted by Melanie Taverner, Class of 2013

Dear Editor,

On Friday, February 17^th, a large crowd of students gathered for Ujima's jazz caf?? in the Spa to listen to spoken word poetry and grab free coffee, donuts, frozen yogurt and other desserts. The next night even more students came out to the Spa to dine on free soul food and watch Lift Every Voice Gospel Choir and Pulse perform. To most of Skidmore, these events were seen in isolation of one another, not as a continuing series of events that occur nearly every Friday and Saturday at 10pm in the Spa.

There is an SGA committee responsible for planning these events. Late Night at Skidmore not only refers to the greasy mozzarella sticks offered after 8pm in the dining hall; the Late Night committee brings you monthly open mic comedy nights and co-sponsorships with clubs that may range from a simple movie night to more involved events such as Ujima's jazz caf?? and Lift Every Voice's performance.

Late Night's goal is to be a reliable source of fun for students who want something to do on Fridays and Saturdays yet it is a profoundly unacknowledged resource. Late Night is doing more than ever with less money than in the past. The Committee offers a full calendar of events for both the fall and spring semesters with a budget of $5,000 less than last year.

Late Night could host approximately sixty events if there was an event every weekend night throughout the year. Currently, Late Night spends no more than $500 per co-sponsored event so Late Night's current budget of $30,000 just fits. When considering, however, the comedy acts that Late Night hires, which can range from $1,500 to well over $4,000, the Mentalist that comes every fall for $4,500 and other smaller events that host outside performers that are priced upwards of $1,000, this budget is not nearly enough.

Late Night's budget is only one third of the size of SEC's annual budget of $89,000. While it is understandable that SEC's budget needs to be substantial in order to sponsor the annual Big Show, only about half of their budget is spent on this show. This leaves $44,500, or about $3,000, per event for the remainder of their approximately fifteen smaller shows scattered throughout the year.

SEC is an example of a funding success story while Late Night is the horror story equivalent. With more funding, Late Night could be as successful as SEC due to its potential to offer the Skidmore community what SEC cannot. Late Night utilizes club sponsorships and maintains a strong focus on comedy acts that can complement SEC. Additionally, Late Night consistently offers everyone somewhere to go, something to do, on otherwise uneventful Fridays or Saturdays. Late Night is the answer administration's various task forces on alcohol use and abuse are looking for. Late Night is right under our nose- it is here and its potential needs to be recognized through increased funding.

Melanie Taverner

Class of 2013

Opinion: SGA Executive Board's Impeachment Mandate (Updated)

Posted by Michael DuPr??

*Editor's note: Since the publication of this op-ed, several of these criticisms have been received by the Vice President of Club Affairs, and the sentence allowing the "concerned member" an appeal has been removed. The impeachment process has also been tied to an ethical violation or a failure to perform duties.

The Vice President of Club Affairs (VPCA), Logan Brenner, has proposed changes to the Club Affairs Committee (CAC) Policies and Procedures that grant the SGA Executive Board potentially unchecked power over the leadership of clubs.

Brenner did announce in her email that presidents had until next Tuesday to make suggestions, but this new impeachment policy will take longer than a few days to sort out.

First, the new article does not lay out the general conditions in which a club member would be justified in starting the impeachment process. There is no provision that the "concerned member" start an impeachment process because the club officer in question violated the SGA Constitution, Skidmore College Honor Code, CAC Policies and Procedure or the Financial Policies and Procedures of their Club Charter.

If the impeachment process is not tied to an ethical violation or a failure of club officer to perform his or her duties as described by the club's charter, club officers could be impeached for personal reasons.

What's more, the proposed law does not introduce a thorough set of procedures for the appeal process with the SGA Executive Board. This ambiguity undermines rule of law. The impeachment of a club officer upon appeal could be decided by the caprices of the SGA Executive Board or any of its members. While this is not stated explicitly in the text, it logically follows from what the law would allow.

The new article also voids all of the impeachment policies and procedures that individual clubs have. As things currently stand, clubs have the ability to decide how best to discipline or impeach a member of its leadership in the instance of transgression. If a club has already decided among its members the most appropriate course of action is such cases, the VPCA should have no reason to deny clubs to decide their own prerogative. 

As we examine the proposed article and its implications, there are a few assumptions that we must make. As was the case concerning the College's new Alcohol and Drugs (AOD) policy, we must always assume that any situation hypothetically permitted under the law could happen. We must also assume that the government will take advantage of all its powers granted under the law, including exploiting ambiguities in the law.

It is worthwhile to conduct a thought experiment that allows for some possible scenarios possible under this new law.

Let us imagine that the two-thirds majority of a club decide that the club officer is not deserving of punition or removal. The member who began the impeachment process could then make an appeal to the SGA Executive Board. Because the proposed law does not introduce any procedures that the SGA Executive Board must follow in the appeal, the process from this point forward is ambiguous; the possible implications range from simply restarting the process, to setting a dangerous precedent - allowing any club officer's continued service subject to the whimsy of the SGA Executive Board. 

The article in question may have been written in good faith, but in permitting such unacceptable scenarios, it fails. Good legislation does not allow any room for outcomes contrary to its purpose, which in this case is the benefit and freedom of clubs on Skidmore's campus.

This is not to say that there is no need to have procedures that allow for impeachment of a club officer - far from it. There are certainly times when impeachment is appropriate and even necessary. However, impeachment is a serious act and it must be tied to equally serious ethical violations or a failure to perform duties under the club's charter.

I am suggesting that the new policy proposed by the VPCA is heavy-handed, unnecessary and dangerous. This article should be stricken before the CAC Policies and Procedures is reauthorized by the SGA Senate. There is no reason to void the carefully crafted impeachment polices of clubs and replace them with mandated policies, especially those which might concede such sweeping powers to the SGA Executive Board.

Opinion: Impeachment Mandate

Posted by Michael DuPr??

Last Wednesday, the Vice President for Club Affairs, Logan Brenner, sent an email to all of Skidmore's Club Presidents informing them of changes to the Club Affairs Committee (CAC) Policies and Procedures. This document is the governing law of student organizations and, as Brenner writes, "affects every single club on campus."

While most of the changes consist of minor, uncontroversial amendments or clarifications, the document also includes an entirely new article which grants the SGA Executive Board potentially unchecked power over the leadership of clubs.

Brenner did announce in her email that presidents had until Tuesday to make suggestions, but this new impeachment policy will take longer than a few days to sort out.

First, the new article does not lay out the general conditions in which a club member would be justified in starting the impeachment process. There is no provision that the "concerned member" start an impeachment process because the club officer in question violated the SGA Constitution, Skidmore College Honor Code, CAC Policies and Procedure or the Financial Policies and Procedures of their Club Charter.

If the impeachment process is not tied to an ethical violation or a failure of club officer to perform his or her duties as described by the club's charter, club officers could be impeached for personal reasons.

What's more, the proposed law does not introduce a thorough set of procedures for the appeal process with the SGA Executive Board. This ambiguity undermines rule of law. The impeachment of a club officer upon appeal could be decided by the caprices of the SGA Executive Board or any of its members. While this is not stated explicitly in the text, it logically follows from what the law would allow.

The new article also voids all of the impeachment policies and procedures that individual clubs have. As things currently stand, clubs have the ability to decide how best to discipline or impeach a member of its leadership in the instance of transgression. If a club has already decided among its members the most appropriate course of action is such cases, the VPCA should have no reason to deny clubs to decide their own prerogative. 

As we examine the proposed article and its implications, there are a few assumptions that we must make. As was the case concerning the College's new Alcohol and Drugs (AOD) policy, we must always assume that any situation hypothetically permitted under the law could happen. We must also assume that the government will take advantage of all its powers granted under the law, including exploiting ambiguities in the law.

It is worthwhile conducting a thought experiment allowing for some possible scenarios that could arise under this new law.

Let us imagine that the two-thirds majority of a club decide that the club officer is not deserving of punition or removal. The member who began the impeachment process could then make an appeal to the SGA Executive Board. Because the proposed law does not introduce any procedures that the SGA Executive Board must follow in the appeal, the process from this point forward is ambiguous; the possible implications range from simply restarting the process, to setting a dangerous precedent - allowing any club officer's continued service subject to the whimsy of the SGA Executive Board. 

The article in question may have been written in good faith, but in permitting such unacceptable scenarios, it fails. Good legislation does not allow any room for outcomes contrary to its purpose, which in this case is the benefit and freedom of clubs on Skidmore's campus.

This is not to say that there is no need to have procedures that allow for impeachment of a club officer - far from it. There are certainly times when impeachment is appropriate and even necessary. However, impeachment is a serious act and it must be tied to equally serious ethical violations or a failure to perform duties under the club's charter.

The new policy proposed by the VPCA is heavy-handed, unnecessary and dangerous. This article should be stricken before the CAC Policies and Procedures is reauthorized by the SGA Senate. There is no reason to void the carefully crafted impeachment polices of clubs and replace them with mandated policies, especially those which might concede such sweeping powers to the SGA Executive Board.

Editorial: Fan the flames of our education, grant alumni access to databases

Posted by the Editorial Board

As the weather gets warmer and seniors' mailboxes are filled with notes asking them to order caps and gowns, the class of 2012 is constantly reminded about their impending graduation and the end of their undergraduate studies. Many seniors are, for the first time, thinking about their relationship that Skidmore alumni have with their alma mater. 

Skidmore offers a slew of resources and benefits to its 30,000 alumni. Graduates receive invitations to Celebration Weekend, access to the Skidmore Business Network and the possibility of auditing courses. Skidmore organizes cocktail parties, lectures and receptions with President Glotzbach and travel programs for its graduates. Skidmore alumni are also granted a lifetime use of Career Services, weekend use of the Sports and Recreation Center, and use of the Scribner Library.

Our access to the library however, is not complete. One of the benefits that we do not retain as alumni is access to the academic databases like JSTOR and EBSCOhost. This loss is unfortunate and unnecessary.

Our academic interests certainly do not end the second we are handed a diploma. The liberal arts education ignites the spark of curiosity and fans its flames for a lifetime. Though many of us will be doing post-graduate studies that will surely grant access to these databases, others among us will enter directly into the workforce and will lose access these resources.

Though it would likely be prohibitively expensive to include all alumni in the license agreements that Skidmore has with these databases, we might consider an opt-in program for those alumni who would use and enjoy these academic journals. 

Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., recently started one such initiative.  Last month, Macalester announced it would begin a JSTOR alumni pilot program. Their alumni will have access to over 1,500 scholarly journals to help quench the thirst for knowledge that is created by a liberal arts education. 

There is no reason that Skidmore should not explore adopting a similar program. The school would of course need to gage alumni interest and perform a cost-benefit analysis. We risk little by at least considering the possibility. 

Skidmore's allocation of resources as an academic institution is primarily focused on is its current students - as it should be. Skidmore should consider further supporting the love of knowledge that it steeped its alumni in as students.   

Letter: "Friendly Fire" has fired us up

Posted by Dorothy Franks

Dear Editor,

I want to address the dynamics of the SGA dialogue and then I will attend to the conversation Brendan incited on the way Skidmore addresses important issues, and where he went too far.

I was at the dialogue, but arrived late. I jumped right into the "dialogue" and realized that a facilitated sharing of problems on campus would not be the dynamics of the meeting. I felt, and expressed to many people after the meeting, that there was a major clash of expectations and of facilitation styles. As mentioned by someone else, the dialogue was not well organized. There wasn't an official facilitator to make the dialogue constructive, which in part is one point Brendan highlights. There were representatives from both IGR and Fight Club, but Fight Club did their best to facilitate. From the response of half the people leaving part way through the meeting, and from Fight Club, the two ideologies clashed here, and with multiple expectations for the "dialogue" many were disappointed. IGR centers on a controlled environment to talk about issues on race. Fight Club uses conflict mediation to meet people where they are as parties in conflict. In terms of Fight Club and mediation, the meeting went really well. But this meeting was advertised as a "dialogue" which in IGR has a very specific meaning. So as much as people felt Brendan "messed up the environment" of the dialogue, it wasn't originally a dialogue according to IGR standards, and in terms of Fight Club and mediation it was quite a success. This whole event started to get people talking their needs and that's why mediation was successful here. 

Now with regard to Brendan's article, I do believe he had unfair assumptions along with a set agenda to stir up people and drive them into action. I don't think that Brendan's "Ivory Tower" stance was a constructive or accessible post to bring up these issues. At the dialogue his agenda violated journalistic integrity by steering the conversation. We at Skidmore care, we want voice. Brendan's piece, although stirring, did personally alienate and silence many people who were at the "dialogue" and who read his first article. Carol Hanisch of the Women's Liberation Movement said that "the personal is political" and by alienating any one person, I think Brendan has done significant damage to his objective. Those people no longer wanted to listen, they shut down. 

I noted on the Skidmore dynamic, where we want to act and want our input to be heard.  This is what made Brendan's controversial editorial pieces successful, not his tactics at the dialogue or his poignant bashing of Fight Club and SGA leaders. But, in conjunction with his second article, Brendan has fired up all of us (however unpleasantly that might have been done). He has called to action a community to tackle this issue of unstructured and unproductive "dialogues," (even though that may not be the purpose of the dialogues). So I suggest to Brendan to do a little repair and reach out to the people he has silenced. We want to talk about these issues and do something about them, and that wasn't made evident until Brendan's second piece.  I want to thank him for his end result of getting us to care, but warn his to reevaluate his role as a leader on campus and his role as a journalist. 

So now, I beg collaboration between Brendan as a student leader, SGA, IGR and Fight Club to raise awareness about the two different styles of facilitation, the use of vocabulary like "dialogue," and what that means for conversation for future meetings.  Make sure the expectations of those going into a second SGA presented "dialogue" are in sync and that it is a common drive for improving our Skidmore community, and not opposition to articles, unite us all.

Dorothy Franks

Class of 2014

Renewing Skidmore's commitment to volunteering: Skidmore students should not just do well, they should do good

Posted by Andrew Shi

Generally, spring break invokes images of the sun, warm weather and beaches. For eight Skidmore students though, spring break 2012 was spent constructing homes to help tornado victims. Their efforts helped relieve Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which had been decimated by tornados nearly one year ago in April. At least 58 people were killed, and countless more lost their homes and everything they owned.

The Skidmore team stayed at an old YMCA camp that has been taken over by Habitat for Humanity, although the team operated through a localized charity organization named Project Blessings. During the six-hour work days they helped paint the whole inside of a gymnasium connected to the church and nicknamed "The Closet," as it served as a dispenser for much needed clothes to the impoverished.

They organized hundreds of articles of clothing by gender and size. They used metal spoons to remove paint that dripped onto the floor. In the last few days a house purchased by Project Blessings was repainted - inside and outside. Hedges were trimmed, the lawn mowed and leaves raked. Two decrepit sheds were torn down for liability reasons. The whole house was restored to a degree of cleanliness that even Cinderella would envy.

The Skidmore team, along with Project Blessings and students from other colleges, made one home donation-ready and refurnished a gym to house the needy. While this accomplishment is tremendous, it is still only a drop in the bucket. The 2011 Red Cross report determined that the April tornadoes had destroyed 7,807 homes and rendered an additional 5,817 in need of major repairs. In light of this information, our efforts seem almost insignificant.

The conclusion from this isn't to give up or to roll over in defeat. The answer isn't to do less, but rather to do more.

At the YMCA camp, the Skidmore team joined a group that was building a single house, from scratch, to be given to a single man. This man, during the previous year's tornadoes, had ushered his family into the bathtub of their home, which, because it is grounded to the floor, makes it one of the safest spots. The man couldn't get himself into the bathtub in time though. In a sad twist the tornado swept away the bathtub, and his family, but left him behind. The man was left with nothing. This new house might just be enough to keep him going.

A lot of lives were ruined, a lot of people left homeless, but was that week spent by Habitat for Humanity in giving that one man his life back not worth all the trouble? It may have been one out of 100,000, but that was one life saved. The house restored in part by the Skidmore team will help this man get back on his feet. 

In the wake of a new wave of tornadoes to ravage the Midwest and the South, communities need more volunteers. Lives depend on the aid of volunteers, because often the government can't step up.

In 2011, Skidmore was honored by President Obama as one of 511 colleges across the country to excel in community service. There is a multitude of clubs and organizations at Skidmore dedicated to the local community: Benef-action, the mentoring program, the Red Cross Club and others. These organizations host numerous events, fundraisers and food drives in Saratoga County for projects like Skidmore Cares.

Though our efforts are a good start, Skidmore didn't attain the president's highest achievement - honor roll with distinction. Many of the schools that received these honors are located near recovering disaster areas. Regardless of whether or not our efforts receive recognition, what matters is that Skidmore mobilizes and volunteers.

Students often say they will volunteer, but when the time comes to act upon those words, they're more likely to hand out excuses than to give a hand. It's understandable that students often have heavy workloads, but if they really care they can make the time. They can wait to start drinking until Friday, or even sacrifice just an hour or two from their weekends to go to the food bank or animal shelter. If they really can't afford a few hours from their school week, they have three months of summer break. There's so much to be done. Students can volunteer for issues that they connect strongly with, locally or globally. They can volunteer to protect the environment, donate blood or support Kony 2012. The great thing about volunteering is it can be done any time.

You don't need to give up your spring break to volunteer. You just need to realize that there are others in need and do something to mitigate the suffering of these people. It's not enough to read a headline about families losing their homes to a tornado or to see a homeless man perishing on a park bench, and to simply feel bad about it. Feeling bad doesn't change anything; unfortunately, it is not the thought that counts.

Time magazine named "The Protester" as its person of the year. Remember Occupy Wall Street and the movement that spread across the nation? There may be 1 percent that makes an absurd amount of money and 99 percent that has to worry about how to budget their next paycheck, but what about the 15.3 percent that live below the poverty line. We may be poor college students, but we still go to college.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it." Though from what can be seen, the current safety net is porous with too many person-sized holes. There's a large need for change and, to quote President Obama, "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

If you want change, then do something. If you are bothered by poverty, than do something about it.

As social creatures, we need each other. If you one day were befallen by tragedy, wouldn't you like to know that someone would be there to lend a hand? Skidmore needs to do-more, help-more, give-more.

To get started with volunteering, attend a Benef-action meeting every other Tuesday at 8:15. Benef-action is Skidmore's community service club, and can help point those who really wish to help others in the right direction.

Letter: Critiquing the Attack and Defense of Dialogue on Campus

Posted by Danny Pforte

Dear Editor,

We defend against the attack on the dialogue process, which gives hope, community, and voice to oppressed individuals. We recognize that without programs like IGR, just talking about social justice becomes much more difficult.  But my concern is the privileging of dialogue as the action we take to assert agency against oppression. Having to defend dialogue inhibits the ability to see beyond the approach, freezing discourse and agency in its current place.

Dialogue as a pedagogical approach serves many benefits, the best being its focus on expression and voice as the preferred method of learning. Issues of race, class, gender, and oppression become topics of reflection, allowing students to see their own reality differently and relate to that of others. Being a part of two dialogue classes, I have seen many people, including myself, develop their visions of the world and find confidence in their abilities to tackle difficult issues head on.

But dialogue is not perfect. In a dialectical social structure, in which contradictions and opposites characterize the social world, dialogue falls short of what is needed to truly empower oppressed communities. Dialogue courses do not teach the historical context that is critical to understanding how oppression works. Dialogue also does not allow for those who see some conflicts as unable to be dialogued to feel comfortable in forming oppositional political discourses. For some people living through the highest levels oppression, dialogue may not seem like an effective method. Potentially facing your enemy in the face without an already established community with you can be disempowering and discouraging. I believe it is for this reason many who are needed in the struggle against oppression reject dialogue due to a lack of interest.

Despite the benefits of dialogue, Skidmore College has not changed, and the broader societal context is becoming more oppressive everyday. We have to move beyond dialogue and towards community, organizing, and action. We must study the historical context of power structures (i.e. racism, capitalism, imperialism, hetero-patriarchy) and analyze what others have done to combat their destructive oppression. We must learn from constantly changing conditions and form politics and ideologies that will further the process of liberation for all.

For those interested in moving beyond dialogue, The Liberation Chronicle is meant to build solidarity with all struggling against oppression.  Together we can work to make change.

Danny Pforte

Class of 2013

Soapbox: Reactions to Quran burning in Afghanistan: Ending the West's culturally relativist exception to Muslim extremism

Posted by Eric Shapiro

Editor's Note: This piece was written before the shooting outside of Camp Belambay on March 10, 2012, it is not intended as an indictment of all or the majority of Muslims.

If the West should remain culturally sensitive in its endeavors abroad, it needs to stop tolerating the barbaric reactions of a minority of Muslims to slights against Islam.  We should not make a culturally relativist exception for extremist Muslims to murder in the name of their religion. 

The burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan was a terrible mistake that merited President Barack Obama's letter of apology to President Hamid Karzai. The Quran, like most other religious texts, must be disposed of in a particular manner as prescribed by religious law.

The failure of U.S. military personnel to recognize this was insensitive and counterproductive to America's stated goal of fostering stability in Afghanistan. Such mistakes undermine our credibility and deserve to be condemned without reservation. Whoever was responsible for the blunder deserves to be punished accordingly. The U.S. would be well served to provide its soldiers with the military equivalent of "sensitivity training" to prevent similar instances in the future. However, none of this excuses the disproportionate and, frankly, childish reaction of some Muslims to what was clearly an accident. 

That being said, the actions of some Afghan citizens in response to the Quran burning is far more appalling than the incident that inspired them. This should not be considered a controversial statement; there is simply no non-theological way to justify murder on the grounds of book burning. If this were the case, the entire world would fall into chaos. It is one thing to accept the sanctity of a holy text; it is quite another to accept the notion that those offended by an act of desecration have the right to exact a blood toll.

The fact that a book burning is held by a significant number of Afghanis as cause for massive protests, much less murder, speaks to a serious lack of priorities in that country and much of the Muslim world. In light of the horrific acts of violence inflicted on Muslim Arabs every day (some of them perpetrated by the "Christian" U.S., many more by other Muslims), the capacity of a book burning to provoke such a violent reaction speaks to a serious confusion of priorities in the Middle East.

Unsurprisingly, many progressives have justifiably condemned the Quran burning while unjustifiably sparing Afghanis criticism for their barbaric response. Cultural relativism should never be construed to justify murder. It is long past time that we stop indulging the Muslim world's widespread extremism out of some misguided attempt to feel less guilty about imperialism.

Adherence to an antiquated version of Islam (just like strict adherence to any religion) is a big, if not the biggest, problem in the Middle East right now, and the West does not do Arab Muslims any service by catering to their fanaticism. For years, the West has tacitly accepted violent reprisals by Muslims in response to all manner of slights both real and imagined. The West acts as if years of oppression somehow absolve all Muslims of responsibility for the crimes perpetrated in the name of their faith.  

These same progressives defend Muslims' penchant for violent reprisals by posing the question: would members of any religion respond differently to the debasement of their religious texts in a similar manner? Indeed, no one who has seriously studied Judaism, Christian or any Eastern religion can seriously claim that violence and intolerance are unique to Islam. That being said, in recent years, a sizeable minority of Muslims have demonstrated a disturbing unwillingness to tolerate the inevitable criticism and disrespect that comes with being a major world religion. Worse, moderate Muslims have not adequately condemned the extremists perpetrating violence in the name of their religion - perhaps out of fear for their own safety or perhaps out of a misguided attempt to safeguard Islam's reputation. In many cases, mainstream Islamic authorities have tacitly accepted fatwas on individuals with the audacity to, for example, draw a picture of the prophet Muhammad.     

For all their bellicose rhetoric about waging a religious war against Islam, it is not common for evangelical Christians (or Jews, or Hindus, or Buddhists...) in the West to go on killing sprees when Muslims disrespect their holy texts. Hamas and Hezbollah launch rockets at Israeli cities with the express purpose of killing Jews, who they consider the equivalent of pigs and dogs, and Israel is condemned for a "disproportionate response." But burn one Quran, or display one picture of Mohammad, and we tacitly accept that extremist Muslims will take to the streets in protest, issue Fatwas against journalists, and decapitate film directors in the street. Worse, it is politically incorrect to point out that this kind of reaction is incompatible with contemporary Western values. Comparatively little sympathy is spared for the countless Christians and Jews with the audacity to practice their religion in so-called "Muslim countries."

This is not to say that it is wrong to be offended when the Quran is disrespected, particularly when the events of the past 10 years have given Arab Muslims ample reason to be suspicious of Western intentions. Nevertheless, Arab Muslims deserve to be held to the same standards of conduct as members of every other religion; in the long run, indulging bad behavior on the grounds of cultural relativism will only leave the Arab world mired in a state of ignorance and superstition. Instead of sympathizing with fanatics who kill people and destroy property over burned books, we should promote those Muslims - and there are many of them - who practice a more modern, secular and peaceful form of Islam.

Unfortunately, this silent majority of sane Muslims is systematically marginalized by theocrats who think every state in the Middle East should instate Sharia law. I am not referring to extremist boogeymen like al-Qaeda and the Taliban - who, incidentally, enjoyed considerable support in the Arab world until they started blowing up Muslims along with everyone else - but rather to the considerable number of modern, secular people who only support free speech as long as it "respects" Islam. Reprisals like the one currently playing out in Afghanistan will only fan the flames of anti-Islamic sentiment around the world. True tolerance cannot be one-sided, nor can it be inculcated through fear. The sooner Muslims everywhere realize that they are the ones with the most to lose when extremists perpetrate violence in the name of their religion, the sooner they will receive the respect they deserve.

Editorial: Variations on themed housing: To expand our space to apply our learning, expand our options for housing

Posted by the Editorial Board

Campus life at Skidmore could benefit from themed housing. If students had the option to live with others who share their academic or creative passions they could whet the skills they learn in the classroom. 

Skidmore currently has very little to offer when it comes to themed housing. As underclassmen, students who desire to live in themed housing are currently limited to gender neutral or single gender options.

The themed housing options in the on-campus apartments are equally limited. Scribner Village - while it still stands - offers only two themed housing options:  Outing Club and International. As the aging Scribner apartments are razed and replaced with the slope apartments and eventually the new Scribner village, we have the occasion to think about ways of improving campus life through housing. 

Having themed housing would provide students with an outlet for their academic passions. Living with people who share some overlapping interest would facilitate discussion outside of the classroom. In college, a very small portion of the week is actually spent in class. Themed housing can inspire the lovers of learning who are students of liberal arts. 

For those who study foreign languages, the opportunity to practice the language in a house of others with a range of linguistic proficiency would be invaluable. 

While language classes provide students with an introduction to literature of cultural significance or a base in grammatical structures, it is just that, a base. Learning a language must happen outside of the classroom. It cannot be restricted to the few hours of the week that are spending in class. Though the language clubs are a useful resource to those who are passionate about learning a foreign language, they are only a finite supplement. Extra effort must be spent to master idiomatic expressions, usage, humor and cultural norms. 

Any student who demonstrates an interest in a foreign language should be eligible. Students in language houses do not necessarily need to be foreign language majors. Although 59 percent of Skidmore's students spend at least one semester studying abroad, 41 percent of students spend their entire college tenure on campus. Because of the particular course requirements and prerequisites for some majors, it can be difficult to study abroad and graduate in four years. Living in a language house can offer an alternative to the linguistic and cultural immersion one would experience while abroad. 

Providing the option of language themed housing with native speakers would not have to be either difficult or expensive. Skidmore already invites and provides housing for native speakers to act as language assistants and resources.   

While the facilitation of language learning is the most obvious benefit of themed housing, we certainly do not need to limit ourselves. Academic or certain extracurricular themes would also be appropriate and inspire creative collaboration.

An environmentally conscious house could serve as a prototype for new campus initiatives and policies that aim to conserve resources and reduce costs and environmental impact. As an incentive to conserve, students in such a house could agree to pay their own utilities bills. Students could save money for the school and for themselves by reducing their consumption.

The liberal arts should facilitate a constant desire for learning. As an institution of liberal arts, we should keep this in mind for every aspect of campus life, housing included.

Letter: Dialogue and Decision Making - Finding a Middle Ground

Posted by Warren Bianchi

Dear Editor,

The issue of dialogue and its relation to policy is one that I am hesitant to approach. The evils of oppression, marginalization and discrimination, I confess, have not been as pressing in my life as in the lives of some members of the Skidmore community.  Therefore, I will not take it as my task here to critique the value of dialogue per se, but only to offer some suggestions regarding it's functional value vis-à-vis the culture of debate, policy making and legislation at Skidmore.

Let's begin by looking at Mr. James' critique of dialogue culture, or what he calls quite aptly, "hard multiculturalism." The danger, it seems, is that by granting each perspective equal validity and equal worth, we fail to make meaningful commitments to any values as a community. This is the relativism of which Mr. James warns us. By granting every perspective equal worth, in other words, we run the risk of undermining each perspective's claim to truth; it is simply a perspectival truth — an equally valid way of seeing things. Justice, which needs a concrete normative basis, is thus forsaken in the name of openness — tolerance.

I'm not sure, however, if this accurately captures the proper function of dialogue, nor the results thereof. It is simply not the case that, through a variety of disparate narratives, we succeed only in cultivating a moral stalemate. It is not necessary to employ logic or reason to be persuasive or to move toward an enlightened (or more enlightened) community sentiment. The function of dialogue can be understood, in my opinion, to be a forum in which an intersubjective understanding of intricate and often abstract phenomena can be cultivated through abandoning the emphasis on pragmatic ramifications, logical reasoning and power relations characteristic of debate culture.

In this sense, it is a gross generalization to dismiss dialogues as feel-good, relativist soapbox events. Rather, dialogue is a technique of broadening community understanding that includes factors often overlooked in the regular political process — namely, experience and appeals to emotions that do not fit neatly into the rational rubric of debate. But perhaps this is precisely where Mr. James' argument holds value. Is it fair to equate the non-binding process of dialogue to the concrete ramifications of political debate and policy implementation? Is it appropriate, in other words, to present dialogue as a place to "make the change we want to see," as SGA has done? Perhaps we should not be critiquing the value of either dialogue or political debate. This may result, as I fear it has, in a polarization of the issue into a camp of dialoguers versus a camp of debaters. As each side becomes more entrenched and defensive, it will be harder to make any significant progress.

Instead, we perhaps ought to re-evaluate the understanding of dialogue's function with regards to debate, and vice versa. Instead of conflating the two — community awareness broadening and political decision-making — we should appreciate the value of these two techniques as dyadic elements of governance at Skidmore. The value of dialogue I have discussed above, and as for debate, well, we need a pragmatic process that produces rules and regulations in order to see to the realization of community sentiment. In this sense, it is not that we need more debate instead of dialogue, but rather that we need to discern the appropriate scope of each. Debate can't be neutral in the way dialogue can, but it can be informed by open, tolerant discussion that fosters a community approach to what action should look like arising from dialogue.

In this sense, dialogue has value in its neutrality, in its openness to the realities of experience and narratives. Debate is valuable insofar as it is the concrete decision-making process that the understandings cultivated through dialogue ought to inform if Skidmore's government institutions are, in fact, democratic. But how can we ensure this link? How can dialogue be inextricably bound to its educative function for decision-making?

A solution could come in the form of an open, tolerant public sphere that informs a neutral political culture or political process (to borrow these ideas from Jürgen Habermas, political philosopher and social theorist). In this sense, the revival of the debate culture that Mr. James calls for in his article "Friendly Fire: Live and Let Dialogue Part II" could be subsumed by this tolerant arena for public discourse. The format of this type of debate need not be the end-all of decision-making. But it does have an undeniable place in any pluralist public sphere. Mr. James is right, after all, to point out that even critical views must be included in any truly open and tolerant society. Our representatives in SGA or other embodiments of the ‘neutral political culture' must, then, do their best to align what works with the public sentiment cultivated in an atmosphere of dialogical narrative expositions and debate. Surely, there is debate at the level of SGA or any legitimate decision-making body, but it need not be framed in terms of competing ideologies. Their debate should be over how to most effectively represent community sentiments and reconcile interests with an eye to pragmatic efficiency.  In this sense, the SGA's involvement with dialogue is a good thing, and the members have been doing a great job with hosting and attending them! So long as they don't expect concrete, binding conclusions from them, but rather a basis on which truly democratic conclusions can be reached —that is, conclusions that reflect the trust a true democracy has in its citizenry (its demos) in determining to what end government ought to strive.

The final piece of this puzzle, as I see it, is participation. The one thing that Mr. James' critics cannot deny him is his dutiful commitment to our community. If we want the governmental bodies at Skidmore to be informed of our wishes and various interests, we must get out there and make them heard. In the final analysis, it is indeed a matter of speaking out and taking action — a quality that appears scarce on this campus of late. This is where Mr. James and SGA can agree. We need to break the silence, both with narratives and criticism, but we also need to ascertain the scope and functions of dialogue, debate and our political institutions.

Warren Bianchi

Class of 2012

Letter: 'Live and Let Dialogue' crossed boundary of invective

Posted by Hannah Kagan-Moore Dear Editor,

In its Ethics Code, the Society of Professional Journalists asks that journalists "examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others." Though as a college paper, The Skidmore News is not a member of SPJ, this would perhaps be a helpful standard to consider in light of this week's article. Although an op-ed by its definition shows a bias, "Friendly Fire: Live and Let Dialogue, Part I" inappropriately crossed the boundary between stating a respectful opinion and delivering needless invective.

The newspaper has requested in the past that responses to its content not employ "ad hominem" rhetoric, which is entirely fair — but it should adhere to the same standards it expects of its readership. I found the tone of the article contemptuous, particularly in depicting dialogue members' responses to Mr. Brust. Skidmore News website comments and personal discussion show that many readers perceived the article the same way. Mr. Brust, if you did not aim to offend your audience, then it is time to reconsider the tone of your writing. Any good newspaper should be willing to examine its content when it realizes it has overstepped the bounds of professional content; I urge The Skidmore News to do so now.

I think we can all agree that fostering discussion about the usefulness of any measure on campus is important, and the press is at the heart of questioning its governing bodies. Any good discussion, however, is also constructive, which this week's column was not. Mr. Brust offered no better solutions or suggestions for improving the campus climate. While he may feel that getting rid of dialogue is an answer, "Live and Let Dialogue" excoriates that institution without providing insight. Ultimately, no one profits from this kind of criticism; it reflects poorly on the paper, and by association, the College.

This paper does indeed represent the College, on campus and online; please write in a manner appropriate to your role as a campus representative. I speak for many members of the community when I say that I expect greater professionalism and integrity from The Skidmore News in the future.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Respectfully,

Hannah Kagan-Moore

Class of 2012

Letter: We need to talk

Posted by Molly O'Brien

Dear Editor,

We need to talk.

The Skidmore News recently published an op-ed criticizing the dialogues held on campus in recent weeks. According to the op-ed's author, our "culture of ‘dialogue' prevents Skidmore from developing a rigorous, deliberative atmosphere on campus," and the dialogues themselves are nothing more than "aggregate[s] of many unpleasant yet individual and disparate experiences." His message is relatively simple and initially logical: how can we make change if all we do is talk about wanting to make change?  

We need to talk. Talking is the first step. Lots of people spoke at the dialogue, and more spoke out in the op-ed's comments. There wasn't a clear consensus on the article – with our multi-voiced chorus at Skidmore, a single, roaring consensus would be downright strange – but many students expressed the idea that the mere existence of a dialogue engenders change. I agree with these students. A place in which we can express our hopes and frustrations, however contrived that place may seem, can nevertheless become an incubator for change.

Skidmore isn't a perfect place; the Skidmore community has to grow and change together in order to prevent marginalization, discrimination, and miscommunication. Our community has to communicate. We need to talk. One commenter noted that "racism, classism, sexism, ableism, nationalism, among others, are not over" – how can we prevent racism, classism, sexism, ableism, nationalism, if we aren't even aware of the smallest incidences of these ills? We can become aware of our privileges and problems if we give people the chance to speak, especially those who have been hurt by one another. A dialogue is not a "delicious emotional buffet" – it is an opportunity to be heard.

Skidmore is a diverse place. To say otherwise would be to ignore what makes our school special. We come from different countries and different socioeconomic backgrounds; we have different appearances and different sexual identities, and we speak different languages. We all have Skidmore in common: taking classes, playing on sports teams, joining clubs, working at on-campus jobs, living in residence halls. Our origins and identities differ, but we are all connected by the mere fact of attending a small school and interacting with each other on a daily basis.

So, we need to talk. Always, we need to talk. We need to talk, and argue, and discuss, and disagree, and clash, and face off. And we need to be kind when we do so. Our community has to communicate, and when we communicate we must address each other with the respect we all deserve. We can clash without being callous, and we can disagree without being demeaning. Why must we be kind to each other? Because we're human. The real world is a rough place, and though there's no need to coddle one another, untrammeled spite and scorn should have no place on our campus. We don't have to support each other all the time, and there's plenty of room for snarky comebacks and razor-sharp wit at Skidmore, but if we don't respect each other, our college climate will change – it'll deteriorate.

These dialogues are a positive presence because they make us aware of the constant need for respect and tolerance. That's the kind of change I want to see here.

Molly O'Brien

Class of 2012

Letter: Why dialogue may be more productive

Posted by Dan Curley

Dear Editor,

I'm writing first and foremost to praise Rick Chrisman's recent and very cogent op-ed piece on the differences between dialogue and debate ("Daydreams: When an institution becomes a community," March 5, 2012). I completely agree that different modes of communication are appropriate to different aims and different moments. Is this not one of the goals of a liberal-arts education — to master different modes in terms of form, content, and outcome?

Speaking of outcomes and aims, I wonder if we couldn't push the distinction between dialogue and debate a little further. Because debate (as I understand it) is contentious and seeks to find flaws, foster differences, and imply conclusions, it smacks of privilege and power. By "privilege and power" I mean two things. On the one hand, debate theoretically enables any party involved to gain privileges and therefore to empower itself. On the other hand, debate very often allows the already privileged and the empowered to shore up the status quo. (I'll pass over how skilled debaters historically have had a kind of specialized education and training that attends privilege.)

If debate aims to create or enforce hierarchies of power, dialogue (again, as I understand it) aims to destabilize hierarchies by cutting across them, cultivating areas of agreement, and leaving room for further communication. These aims might seem unacademic, or "touchy-feely," to some, but true dialogue requires discipline and commitment: I am obliged not only to listen to my partners in dialogue (and they to me), but also to reflect on and interrogate my own presumptions, suppositions, and core beliefs.  If these actions do not constitute learning, I don't know what does.

I think one of the most valuable outcomes of dialogue is how it enables all of us — if we choose to participate — to hear narratives that we would otherwise not hear. Especially not under the terms of debate, which is predisposed toward judgment. My experience with InterGroup Relations (IGR) and other venues of dialogue have inevitably taught me things I did not know and would never have known without those opportunities.

None of this is to say that debate has no place at a liberal-arts college. It does, and so does discussion (another mode of communication we should value and interrogate). Yet for this moment at Skidmore, the lateral approach of dialogue seems to me the most productive way forward.

Dan Curley

Associate Professor and Chair

Classics Department

Skidmore College

Letter: Conflict is integral to dialogue

Posted by Kali Block-Steele

Dear Editor,

Amazing to see how much you value conflict because, speaking as an IGR Dialogue facilitator, conflict is an integral part of dialogue. Dialogues are not designed so that everyone sits happy-go-lucky in a circle, cries and shares their emotional experiences. They are designed so that, yes, we share our personal experiences that sometimes carry with them emotions (surprisingly we all are not privileged enough to live in emotionless ivory towers) but that we realize we don't always agree and thus dialogues should also produce conflict. From conflict emerges growth.

I am not merely just a proponent of dialogue. Not everything can be learned or solved through it, but there is a huge value from actively and openly sharing with others. This value has been proven repeatedly; IGR has years of solid "real rigorous" data that proves dialogue has a huge benefit. I do not believe that dialogue should overrun campus and I don't think that it will take over our "liberal arts education" as you seem so worried about. It should, though, be able to have its place within our liberal arts education.

As you so virulently appose "dialogue culture" you seem to be excitedly proposing a "debate culture" instead. If we truly want to make this campus a better place, one that provides a relevant and impactful education and that also constructs a positive, open, welcoming community then we need a few different methods to do so. 

As things stand this "tolerance and pluralism" that you say is slipping away has never been here. Yes, there has been much tolerance, for a small sector of the population.  You attempt to make the claim that privilege, oppression, a white male ruling class, etc. hold no reality. Please, remove your self-imposed blinders for a second and take a look at, let's say, our presidents. What is something that ties all our presidents, but one, together? They have been, from the start, white, male and predominantly wealthy. This trend has also been reflected in the branches of our government and throughout all power wielding institutions, including colleges and universities. Because, as things have been going, those in power act in order to maintain their power, they must then create ideas, laws, and ambassadors like you to continue the cycle.

A little more awareness is what I am asking of you. I ask you to dig deeper into the ideas that you have been taught, that we have all been taught. I ask you to critically analyze these structures we are immersed in, and whether or not these ideas you claim are essential to a liberal arts education were constructed with the entire population in mind or just a segment of it.

I value your opinion, but I need to you to value mine as well. Your arguments are drastic and your mind does not seem open. Time continues for a reason, it permits us to look back and allow our present to evolve our past ideas into new, more currently relevant places. Change is not a bad thing as long as it is done with all parts considered. 

Kali Block-Steele

Class of 2013

Daydreams: When an institution becomes a community: Opening a line of communication between the debaters and the dialoguers

Posted by Rick Chrisman

I have a riddle for you.  It's World War II.  As battle raged overhead and depth charges were being dropped on all sides of them, why couldn't the two U.S. submarine officers communicate with one another? Because they were in two different submarines!  Submarines, you may already know, cannot communicate directly with one another (salt water's low conductivity precludes it). 

From where I sit, not that anybody asked, it looks to me like the Skidmore News Editor-in-chief and the aggrieved Skidmore students are in two different submarines, in effect operating from differing air-tight assumptions. Try as they might, although each acknowledges the reality of the war surrounding them, they manifestly can't get their point across to the other. Until they recognize the source of their (at present bitter) conflict, they will not come to an understanding.

Their differences derive, I believe, from the dichotomy in human society between two distinct spheres of life. The distinction, not recognized by either party so far, lies in two specific words they use when the students call for dialogue and the Editor calls for debate. Each is an act of communication characteristic of two different realms, namely, the private and the public realms—and never the twain shall meet.  It just isn't in the cards; they are different animals.

Dialogue belongs to the private realm, being a conversation, a thoughtful exchange between two or more people. Often, but not always, dialogue is a function limited to small groups and social intimates. It has no goal other than the communication itself, the sharing of a personal experience or an insight, or the attainment of the bond that results from a mutual airing of differences. It has relevance in business and political settings, too. But it is personhood, not persuasion, that chiefly characterizes dialogue. Such was the outcome sought at the Interrupt Silence meeting last Wednesday night, I gather.

By contrast, the debate that the Editor is calling for is an entirely different sort of discourse. Despite connotations of contentiousness and controversy, the essence of debate is a public deliberation over the truth of a certain proposition or course of action.  The challenge of articulating our views in public leads to greater clarity of thought and to the fulfillment of our true visions. The Editor wants, in his own words, "a rigorous, deliberative atmosphere on campus." Here the desired emphasis is the opposite of dialogue; it's on persuasion, not personhood, and the venue for that is a forum where issues can be debated and a new course of action set.  

Fair enough. For whatever reason, the Editor values the experience of public discussion of issues over the sharing which occurs in dialogues. That is his preference. By the same token, for their personal reasons, the students prefer the dialogue as a setting for airing their grievances.  But people shouldn't expect the private setting to meet the goals of a public event, or vice versa. The Editor makes a mistake when expecting dialogues to be other than—well, dialogues. And the students are mistaken when they haven't recognized that the next step after dialogue is to bring their grievances to the level of a community arena where they can be deliberated upon publicly. Each has an indispensable place in the process, but they are not at all the same thing.

There is a point at which the private sharing of feelings needs to evolve into a public discussion of issues. But this does not happen automatically. At some point, a solidarity meeting has to draw some conclusions and decide who to approach about making changes in the environment. Then, at the moment they bring this issue to the institutional authority, it becomes a public discussion. In the meantime, dialogue should not be disparaged. This is the common route of progress.

However, it can also progress southward, as the emotionally damaging exchanges so far demonstrate. The bitterness of the conflict is something to be deplored as very unfortunate—and unnecessary. By my analysis, it is a direct result of all parties indulging in the written expression, which is public expression, of undigested opining way outside of the private boundaries of our minds and living rooms. Casting aspersions and attributing motivations to people, some done under cover of anonymity, constituted a high percentage of this communication.

Neither dialogue nor debate need entail such antagonism. The virtue common to both private and public discourse is listening, and better still, deep listening. Actually, it turns out, both our Editor and the students want to break the Silence and have people speak in a safe environment. But then, everyone also has to be prepared to listen. It signals that you are inviting someone into public friendship (as distinct from "friending" someone). I think what we really want is not so much to "belong" to an institution as to belong to each other in this significant way.  That's what I want, anyway. And I believe we can. That's when an institution becomes a community.

Friendly Fire: Live and Let Dialogue, Part II: Whether to ?make change? or to restore the liberal arts, we must cut through relativistic dialogue

Posted by Brendan James

*Editor's Note: While I certainly do not renounce the content of any of my remarks, whether spoken or in print, I do apologize to any who perceived the delivery of my remarks at the campus dialogue, "Interrupting Silence," as intentionally offensive. Once more, anyone who wishes to respond to the arguments of this column may write a Letter to the Editor at skidnews@skidmore.edu.

Perhaps it is characteristic of a two-part critique that anything argued in the first half, left to sit, will reek of negativity – so much that readers pinch their noses and turn away from the subsequent, more constructive serving. I can only hope that this is not the case in my two-tiered argument against propping up dialogue as the reigning form of campus discourse.

While last week's critical remarks on our "culture of dialogue" were a necessary throat clearing, I will offer here the positive alternative: a restoration of dispassionate, critical and reasoned argument. We need it here, in some form. Reappraising argument would not only push back against the relativistic, emotion-laden trend of dialogue here at Skidmore but also reequip us with the essential tools for a liberal arts education.

Why is such a push back necessary? First, we have plainly reached a point in which much of our student body views personal narratives as infallible and invariably permissible modes of argument. To a degree, Skidmore cultivates this: in various Scribner Seminars, students come to see their educational experiences as pathways to "awareness," and diversity in higher education becomes a central and apocalyptic matter. In many cases this disposition will fully calcify by a student's junior or senior year.

The construal of education as a liberating social "awareness" invariably entails a rebellion against the "traditional" approach to academics. Argument, properly understood, is revealed as authoritarian and close-minded; classical liberal values are parsed as nothing more than expressions of power by society/the ruling class/men/the Illuminati. Many students and faculty claim to have unmasked this awful facade and view the crumbling of objectivity – of "truth" – as emancipation. By undercutting the universal validity of argument, we are supposed to be opening the doors to multiculturalism and tolerance – where everyone's story matters, all the time. Dialogue is born, and Skidmore thereby earns its place among the echelons of tolerant and responsible colleges.

But really, in undercutting argument we kill any potential for real rigorous and constructive deliberation – the hallmark of both liberal democracy and certainly liberal education. Now, persuasion, rather than the "force" of argument, becomes the way we settle conversations on everything from race relations to AOD policy. Truth is forever ensnared in sneer quotes in order to protect our sensibilities from any of its harsh lacerations.

And so as dialectic slips away, so does our original understanding of tolerance and pluralism. It becomes a given tenet of mutual respect that no one be proven essentially and demonstrably wrong on any issue, for that would be attacking one's personal life and one's narrative. Thus, for fear of committing this or any form of soft oppression, everyone adopts a vocabulary that keeps out the "bigots." As things stand, the proper response to someone who questions the dogma of dialogue is to simply accuse that person of being divisive, "privileged," bigoted or even flat out racist. (It is similar to how Marxists used to label someone a "hyena" and call it a day; or how McCarthyites would dismiss someone as "pinko," with no further need for discussion.)

In other words, there is no need to engage with any argument put forth against a proposition, because the person advancing it must be a lousy chauvinist! Don't waste your time! Here at Skidmore I have heard arguments against IGR courses described as "discrimination." The critic or skeptic who hurts the sensibilities of dialogue/diversity program-enthusiasts is said to have created a new "minority" on campus. On and on, faster and faster, the definitions of once meaningful words swirl down the drain.

This is a dangerous point to have reached, where such serious (though sometimes meaningless) charges are hurled at those who merely doubt the sensibility of certain diversity initiatives or perhaps the project of hard multiculturalism more generally. But the beauty of it all is that this project steeps us in such relativism that at a certain point, there really is no way to claw out of it through sharp, clear deliberation and critique. The sacred cow this protects, above all others, is of course the institution of dialogue.

Some may find me here to be guilty of the same alarmism I ascribe to the other side.  How does any of this relativism, perhaps desirable in private sessions on marginalization and narrative, infect other corners of life at Skidmore?

Allow me to provide just a recent example: last week, at an event titled "Faces of Israel," a panel of Israeli academics and activists shared their experiences and perspectives on life in the Levant. I did not attend the event, but I noticed that promotion promised the speakers would "engage" with students "without shying away from the complex political and cultural issues Israel faces." Many students went along to the event, took this line at face value, and brought with them some complex questions.

However, several attendees approached me afterward, utterly frustrated by the proceedings. A few had tried to dig deeper into the aforementioned "complex issues" of the conflict. Their questions were dismissed, evaded again and again through more personal narratives. Any attempts to argue about international law, civil disobedience – that stubbornly objective idea, justice – were dismissed.

And so, despite the event's promotion, another uncritical episode of narratives took the place of what could have been a lively and relevant exchange of ideas. Once we sanctify this approach on the level of "bias responses" and the like, it does in fact creep into what should be the more rigorous academic sphere.

I ended my last piece with a cautious suggestion: if the methods and principles of dialoguing continue to be construed as the most legitimate (and thereby exclusive) mode of discussion at Skidmore, it will impose a very conspicuous silence. I'll end this piece with a slight adjustment: a more appropriate description would be a "white noise," where words ("oppression," "privilege," etc.) are spoken but devoid of meaning; where the majority roars over the voices of skeptics, labeling them intolerant; where emotion and sentimentality erode every discussion, dissolving logic and reason.

This is not a portrait of the liberal arts, no matter how subtly it is brushed over the original picture. I am advocating, in any shape, a concrete push for a newfound pulse of debate and intellectual probity on campus. It might arrive through the return of the debate team, a resurgence of the sparring matches between Skidmore Republicans and Democrats, within the pages of this Op-Ed section — or even through the panel I have been organizing with SGA and Fight Club.

Did anyone see that coming? Perhaps conflict and contention can bring us closer together, after all.