January 2015
To anyone hoping that the year just past would see a return to “normalcy” in the once-secure world of American higher education, 2014 brought no comfort. Each of the difficulties and criticisms that have arisen over the last few years continued and if anything were amplified. Total national enrollments fell by more than a percentage point for the third straight year. Community colleges and proprietary schools were hit the hardest, but no sector was immune. Even Ivy League universities saw drops in applications, with Dartmouth’s down 14%.
"... our university, so far, has stood somewhat apart from these dreary trends, sometimes by virtue of inherent strengths, in some instances because of actions we have all taken together."
A host of schools, public and private,...
Education
Open Letter To Kansas School Board
I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.
Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence...
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Dear open letters,
I wasn't going to write this but, after witnessing the week you've just had, it has become apparent that somebody needs to pull you to one side and give you a stern talking-to. I've decided that this person should be me. I've also decided that this talking-to should come in the form that you're most comfortable with, with all the self-righteousness and pretend intimacy and confused intentions that it entails. So this is what I have to say … and it is said in the spirit of transparently opportunistic bandwagon-jumping.
I am increasingly concerned that those around you have led you to believe that it is in any way "cool" to be used as a legitimate response to all public events. While I am aware that you started with the best intentions in the world – good work on...
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Greetings Ms. Hari,
We are writing to you as a group of students, scientists-in-training if you will. Collectively, we study all different aspects of the science of food: food microbiology, food chemistry, functional foods, food processing and variety of other disciplines that make it possible for people to have safe and healthy food. The contents of this letter outline several of the concerns we have taken with your movement, and in the spirit of intelligent debate, we implore you to read this letter in its entirety. Our passion for the field of food science and the awareness of how food can affect health, among other aspects of human life, are what have motivated us to reach out to you.
Because we believe everyone should be involved in an open discussion on food, we would like...
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Dear Nancy,
I’ve read your recent articles about campus sexual assault. I appreciate and respect your position as an advocate for accused sex offenders, but please stop using your gender and your status as a feminist to persuade others that you are also an advocate for women’s safety and equality.
Indeed, contrary to your claim that you have worked to improve the law for rape victims, you have, in my opinion, fought to make things worse.
In cases of mine in which you were involved as the lawyer for the rapist, you fought hard to weaken women’s rights, without a constitutional imperative or need to do so on behalf of your client.
For example, you advocated in Massachusetts to change the law and eliminate protections for rape victims’ constitutionally protected privacy rights...
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Dear Dr. Hon,
I am Agatha, a C1 student, and my purpose in writing this open letter to you today is to express my sincere concerns about the MSF “It’s Uncomplicated” workshop all C1 students had to attend on Friday, the 3rd of October.
I attended the workshop with my class in the AVT. Before it started, I flipped through the booklet provided by Focus on the Family (FotF). While sexuality education rarely manages to teach me something that I have not already learnt through past sessions or mainstream media, this booklet was different. From merely glancing through this booklet, I learned a simple yet important lesson: that bigotry is very much alive and it was naïve of me to think I could be safe from it even in school.
While I do have many concerns with regards to this workshop and its...
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To Mr. Dallas Lusk, Head of School and Austin Wallis, Former Student:
Gentlemen. As a father and a Christian, I wanted to weigh in on the current controversy in which you both are active participants. As a parent, I take a sincere interest in schools and their efforts to establish principles for their students, guide them into the world and create the new citizens who will lead us into the future. Whether or not my sons attend a particular school is irrelevant. Their peers, others who may be in their world, will have attended that school and will influence the world in which they live.
This has already happened at Lutheran North. Austin, you have already emerged as its product onto the world stage. You have made yourself known, from your joys to your recent challenges.
Yes. Mr. Lusk...
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Dear White People,
I don’t hate you. I know you are convinced that I despise you and your entire existence and want nothing more than to destroy you and the unicellular body you evolved from, but that is not the case. I know I’ve said ‘ugh White people’ and ‘fuck White people’ and ‘I hate White people’, but there is more to those statements than blanketed, unprovoked bitterness. There is an underlying understand that maybe you don’t see that I assume is evident.
When I say ‘I hate White people’, I’m saying I hate that I have to be compared to you in order to get any recognition. I’m saying that I hate the fact that everything that I do is judged by your standard. I hate that no matter where I go, I will be scrutinized based on your principles. I hate that I cannot exist without...
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The decision of King’s College London to reverse its daft adoption of a trendy new name, “Kings London”, is a welcome but regrettably rare example of university “management” being forced to realise that they had gone to far in their zeal for corporatism rather than education.
The real question was why and how the original stupid decision was taken in the first place, when it is clearly opposed by just about everyone in the university. Sadly, anyone who has worked in a university knows only too well how these decisions are taken.
Universities are now run as businesses, by isolated groups consisting of vice-chancellors and their pro-VC sidekicks and senior non-academic managers (usually ex-Tesco or NHS accountants and HR executives who have rarely set foot in an academic department),...
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You don’t get to see the tears that stream down my daughter’s face when she tells me that she had a horrible day at school. Today you refused to work with her on a group project, saying: “Why do we have you? We don’t like you. Why can’t someone else be in our group?”
The tears when she is the last to be chosen for a team. The tears when she is the only one not invited to a birthday party. The questions she asks me – why isn’t she as good as everyone else in the class and why is she always left out? What is wrong with her, she wants to know, that makes everyone so mean?
Maybe you just want to be like the others in your class and not stand out by accepting the child who is different to you; the child who is a bit chubby, who speaks another language, who dresses differently. Maybe your...
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