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(10/29/12 3:00am)
There are two ways to respond to the argument made by Chandrasekar Ramesh last Thursday ("Overemphasizing the Liberal Arts," Oct. 25). The first, which helps no one, is to point out that there are many specialized technical institutions for those who want that kind of education. Dartmouth is not one of them ("lest the old traditions fail"). A better response must explain why the liberal arts education has value. What is it good for?
(06/01/11 2:00am)
In his Presidential Lecture last summer, College President Jim Yong Kim demonstrated one of his own "habits of mind" when he said that at Dartmouth, "We are in the business of building better human beings that can take on the world's troubles and make them better." While in the past I've been primarily critical of the second half of that statement ("Tilting at the World's Troubles," Jan. 27), in my last column for The Dartmouth I'd like to return to this remark and take up the first. The "habit of the mind" that Kim is employing when he talks about "the business of building better human beings" (as if the College were a research and development firm for a line of highly sophisticated, world-saving robots) is that of objectifying people and treating them as the means to accomplish something, rather than as ends in themselves. I believe that this perspective is thoroughly anti-humanistic and, therefore, fundamentally antagonistic to the spirit of the liberal arts. It is also at Dartmouth at any rate extremely common.
(06/01/11 2:00am)
In his Presidential Lecture last summer, College President Jim Yong Kim demonstrated one of his own "habits of mind" when he said that at Dartmouth, "We are in the business of building better human beings that can take on the world's troubles and make them better." While in the past I've been primarily critical of the second half of that statement ("Tilting at the World's Troubles," Jan. 27), in my last column for The Dartmouth I'd like to return to this remark and take up the first. The "habit of the mind" that Kim is employing when he talks about "the business of building better human beings" (as if the College were a research and development firm for a line of highly sophisticated, world-saving robots) is that of objectifying people and treating them as the means to accomplish something, rather than as ends in themselves. I believe that this perspective is thoroughly anti-humanistic and, therefore, fundamentally antagonistic to the spirit of the liberal arts. It is also at Dartmouth at any rate extremely common.
(05/09/11 2:00am)
Already, two of my fellow columnists, Louis Wheatley '14 and Brendan Woods '13, have confronted the "objectors" ("A Shotgun for Bin Laden," May 3) and "armchair philosophers" ("Laden with Questions," May 5) who would call into question the killing of Osama bin Laden. The rush to shield his assassination from any sort of scrutiny comes as no surprise. In the increasingly cynical style of U.S. foreign policy, all sorts of evils have become necessary. From detentions without habeas corpus at Guantanamo Bay, to the kill order on American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki, now to the assassination of an unarmed man in front of his 12-year-old daughter, the American ideal of justice has been stretched to the breaking point. The debate may just be getting started, but it's also long overdue.
(02/07/11 4:00am)
Dartmouth has shed a lot of its WASPiness in recent decades. By my calculations (and by "calculations," I mean flipping through a couple yearbooks from the 1950s), the student body is roughly 50 percent less white and Anglo-Saxon than it was 60 years ago. Plus, we've severed all ties to the Protestant faith. All official ties anyway.
(01/27/11 4:00am)
Nowadays, "the world's troubles are your troubles" is something like Dartmouth's unofficial motto. To encourage students in their efforts to shoulder this burden of moral responsibility, President Jim Yong Kim recently added, "there is nothing wrong in the world that human beings can't fix" ("Students share, reflect at annual global forum," Jan. 18), to his repertoire of optimistic aphorisms. And here I thought that "Quixotism" was just the theme of this term's Dartmouth Film Society series.
(01/10/11 4:00am)
The left's reaction to the midterm elections has been remarkably illiberal. Although I have heard the occasional sportsmanly concession to the "will of the people" from my left-leaning friends, I hear much more often about the "frustration" or "anger" of the people. Of course, this psychological interpretation of the Republican resurgence and the rise of the Tea Party comes straight from the White House. The sore losers on the left are parroting President Barack Obama: "People are frustrated. They are deeply frustrated with the pace of our economic recovery." This is the lesson learned from his party's recent electoral losses, and only the latest example of his characterizing any dissent as a symptom of neurosis brought on by financial anxiety.
(11/23/10 4:00am)
In a recent article in The New York Times, Stanley Fish reviews a new study of the higher education industry by Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman. In their book, "Why Does College Cost So Much?" (2010). Archibald and Feldman argue that while it's true tuition has risen faster than inflation for decades, this increase is not the product of poor management within colleges but rather of external pressures. Fish acquits the usual suspects administrative bloat and resultant Soviet efficiency remarking that while serving as a dean at the University of Illinois at Chicago he "encountered the rising costs of personnel, laboratory equipment, security, compliance demands, information systems and much more every day." The three authors are united in blaming the increased cost of doing business, especially "change in the sophistication and cost of technology," for skyrocketing tuition. They contend that colleges would be criminally negligent to "hold out for pencil, paper and blackboard instruction," so they have no choice but to burden students with the cost of keeping up to date.
(10/27/10 2:00am)
Dartmouth alumni tend to know a little something about money (see Timothy Geithner '83, Henry Paulson '68), but Alfred Valerie '01 seems to be an exception. In case you missed his recent guest column ("Best for Whom?," 10/15/10), Valerie was a victim of the Financial Aid Office's systematic campaign to generously enable poor students to attend an absurdly expensive private college. He was required to sign away years of his life in servitude, years he would spend repaying an institution maliciously intent on "saddling unsuspecting kids with onerous debt." After four years, his tab totaled "roughly $20,000," nearly 15 percent of the sticker price. No wonder they call us the Big Green.
(10/14/10 2:00am)
Last Monday, some of the members of the senior class attended a ring ceremony that can only be described as palpably meaningless. My classmates' creative interpretations of the business casual dress code were an appropriate commentary on the event's absurdity. But things took a dramatic turn when College President Jim Yong Kim made a startling pronouncement. His message: We seniors are really smart and talented and will go on to do great things. Confronted by this new and terrifying vision of our potential, the Class of 2011 dazedly nibbled at some Hanover Inn cookies (made with locally quarried granite) and argued over the oracle's interpretation in hushed tones. Some were dismayed by the contrast with former College President James Wright's address at our Convocation, which, of course, did not state that we are the promise of tomorrow. "You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."
(09/28/10 2:00am)
Yesterday, Brendan Woods '13 criticized Dartmouth's curriculum for focusing too heavily on academic quibbles, which squelches inquiry into life's "big, interesting questions" ("It's Academic," Sept. 27). Although he fails to recognize that a course as limited in its scope as "Cell Signaling" might be necessary to an aspiring endocrinologist, it is true that there are many courses in the humanities that reflect an unjustifiable narrowness.
(05/25/10 2:00am)
Kim cited Former College President John Kemeny when explaining his own vision for the College that it endow students with "the moral motivation to solve the problems of society" and "also add the know-how to devise and implement practical solutions." Kim responded to those who would "interpret this vision as emphasizing the practical disciplines" by adding that studying literature, philosophy or dance are "supremely practical activities," because they contribute to understanding and experiences that are "central to building a more just world."
(05/10/10 2:00am)
Among the fringe benefits of living off campus and not taking classes is that one can avoid pondering the display in the Barrows Rotunda at the front of the Hopkins Center, more often than absolutely necessary. When the WITS tracking system informed me that a fresh ration of contact lenses had arrived at my Hinman Box, however, I steeled myself for an encounter with whatever dismembered cord of firewood, exploded remains of a circus tent or suspended menagerie of gopher burn victims might lie ahead.
(04/21/10 2:00am)
I do not own an eco-mug. I think compost is kind of gross. I have personally prepared The Bacon Explosion twice. But I recently drove two hours and gave up a whole Saturday to attend the Vermont Statewide Farm to Plate Summit. Now, why would a guy about as crunchy as a Twinkie smothered in nacho cheese find himself in the People's Republic busily taking notes on micro-wholesale, community-supported distribution co-ops?
(11/23/09 4:00am)
I think that I will spark little controversy by describing Dartmouth's environment as pluralistic and academic. Our college brings together people who differ in every respect of geography and circumstance and encourages them to engage substantively with ideas and to pursue knowledge. At Dartmouth, diversity and scholastic excellence are mainstream values. Those who do not share them are relegated to the fringe of our small society. I doubt that anyone will bother to dispute these observations. But I would like to raise a more controversial question: What happens when our academic pursuit of knowledge collides with our pluralism?