You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October, 2008.
Today I went for a run in the glorious lower arb and took some pictures. Bought in the 1920’s by President Cowling, it was originally mockingly nicknamed “Cowling’s Folly” (in reference to “Seward’s Folly”). The arb is without a doubt one of the college’s greatest assets. Here are some of the pictures I took. Click for a full page view.
There’s a rough trail (above) in the lower arb which leads to Turtle Pond (below).
Look here for some pictures I took in Winter, and check out these drawings of the Arb done by the Field Drawing courses.
There’s been some distressing news lately about drunken students being hospitalized for alcohol poisoning.
Last week’s Carletonian featured two articles referring to the high number of hospitalizations this term. Emily Howell writes in passing:
Equally attention-worthy is the number of students that have been taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning this year as compared to past years. The number I have heard quoted, although not from an official source, are that 60 individuals have been transported to the hospital this term alone. In all of 2007-2008, the number of hospitalizations did not even approach this scale.
I looked through the security blotters from this year and found less than 20 reported hospitalizations, not all of them from alcohol poisoning. If the number is that high, it would already be more than the aggregate from last year.
Brett Adelmann writes an editorial calling students to watch over each other. “If you have been at a party, you inevitably have witnessed behaviors that are precursors to a trip to the hospital.”
The minutes to this week’s meeting are up. Here’s the weekly update which I write:
CSA Senate Weekly Update for the Meeting held 10/27/2008
CSA Exists to Represent You!
Here’s some of the questions we asked this week!
Should the Student Activity Fee reflect a student’s income?
- Currently Financial Aid does not apply to the Student Activity Fee, every student pays $201
- CSA could make the fee vary based on a student’s financial background.
- For example, the fee could fluctuate between $25 and $400 based on a students financial need.
- CONTACT: Evan Rowe (rowee@carleton.edu)
What can the Sustainability Revolving Fund (SRF) do to be more accessible?
- The SRF exists to invest in large-scale energy projects that pay themselves back in energy savings.
- Currently there is over $85,000 ready to be used, but no one is accessing it.
- How can it be made more accessible?
- Do you have a project in mind?
- CONTACT: McKay Duer (duerm@carleton.edu)
How can the Board of Trustees better connect with students?
- The board of trustees wants to meet with all kinds of students, how can they best reach out during their brief visits?
- Senate met with trustees last weekend and discussed possible creating a committee to help students connect with trustees.
- Do you have ideas for how the Trustees can connect with students?
- CONTACT: Chase Kimball (kimballc@carleton.edu)
What are the new graduation requirements going to look like?
- The Education and Curriculum Committee is changing the graduation requirements for future classes. Here are some of the changes being considered:
- A required First Year Seminar taken for credit.
- “Approved” Club Sports will be receive credit in the same way Varsity Sports do.
- New distro categories, most likely based on “skill sets.”
- At least 198 of 210 credits must be earned from Carleton courses.
- Writing Requirement, Speaking Requirement, Writing Portfolio remain.
- A new RAD replacement named the Global Citizenship requirement.
- CONTACT: Robert Orion Martin (martirob@carleton.edu), Cat McMurtry (mcmurtrc@carleton.edu)
Film Society is bringing the Flaming Lips movie Christmas on Mars to campus!
Griffin Williams ’12 and Jimmy Rothschild ’12 got enough money to buy the suit of armor!
CSA Senate meets every Monday at 7:00PM in Sayles 251, come join us!
Today I went to a lecture by visiting assistant CAMS professor Michael Griffin. He discussed the myth of the new media’s impact on the political process in the US.
We all know there are problems with the mainstream media. Campaign coverage is dominated by horse-race coverage and the electoral map gameboard. There is no historical context, and a superficial notion of balance distorts information.
Griffin attacked the idea that “new media” is changing all of this. The internet has increased the number of people creating news (like me!) and increased the speed at which events are defused, but what is the result? We now have a media nexus of web, print, radio and television sources all obsessed with reacting to each other. The result is “ephemeral and capricious news.”
I had to leave before the question and answer session to study for a quiz. If you’re reading this on Tuesday night, you should go to one of the two awesome events tonight. Unfortunately, they’re both at 7:30PM.
- Forum on Carleton’s Discrimination Policy in the libe Athenaeum
- “Bisexuality: Moving Beyond Binaries,” with Robyn Ochs in the Great Hall
CSA Senate discussed several important issues this week. I’ll link to the minutes as soon as I finish them.
Making the Student Activity Fee reflect the student’s ability to pay
Currently every student pays $201 per year for the Student Activity Fee. Financial Aid does not apply to this money. Senator Evan Rowe proposed a change to the rules that would make the fee reflect the student’s economic situation. He proposed a floor of $25 and a ceiling of $400.
This makes total sense to me, although many senators were concerned about creating a backlash. Students who aren’t involved in campus politics and suddenly see their Activity Fee double would be understandably surprised. But it’s still a good idea for campus, it just needs the right publicity.
Sustainability Revolving Fund
The Sustainability Revolving Fund is $85,000 that is supposed to fund green projects that pay themselves back in energy savings. Unfortunately, the application process is very difficult, and there have been few approved projects. There have been no applications this year.
Last year I heard rumors of some really exciting ideas (replacing the lights in Cowling, low-flow water heads, vending misers) and I think it’s tragic that all of these ideas went to the SRF and died. If it’s not working, I hope they consider reorganizing the application process to make it easier to accomplish. There wouldn’t be a publicity problem if the fund was truly accessible.
What to do about RAD
Tonight Cat McMurtry and I updated senate on the recent decisions of the Education and Curriculum Committee concerning the Recognition and Affirmation of Difference requirement. Senators immediately asked what happened to the student intiative, which the faculty had rejected.
I think it’s folly to continue pushing for the full credit faculty taught class. Faculty has made it clear that they want no part in it, and to continue forcing the topic will only result in some situation that we don’t want to see anyway. I do think something more needs to be done and I’m not completely sold on the Intergroup Relations pilot.
So it’s back to the drawing board on incorporating discussions of power and privilege into academic life at Carleton.
The Education and Curriculum Committee is currently changing the graduation requirements. Easily the most controversial graduation requirement is the “Recognition and Affirmation of Difference” (RAD) requirement. Below I provide a brief history of the controversy surrounding RAD and summarize the proposal for the new RAD replacement.
Currently any class dealing with diversity issues of any sort is a RAD class. Some of these classes (Black Slaves, White Masters) deal with power and privilege issues, while others (World Music) focus solely on diversity.
I am one of a group of students who wants to see a class addressing power and privilege included in the graduation requirements. I think that no student should be allowed to spend four years at Carleton and never address these issues. Ideally, students would be given the tools to approach issues of privilege and power in an academic environment. Sue Rankin, who led the Campus Climate Survey, reported that at Pennsylvania State University, they have successfully started a mandatory freshmen class focusing on such issues and their effect on campus life.
A group of students last year submitted a proposal for a requirement named Critically Considering Context which, among other things, would “acknowledge the challenges and benefits of difficult dialogue, while providing students with meaningful and lasting strategies for handling such dialogue in the future.”
At a recent meeting of the Language and Teaching Center, faculty made clear that they will not approve such a requirement. The new curriculum will include the Global Citizenship requirement, which calls for one class focusing on “International Studies” and another about “Intercultural Domestic Studies.” There is no requirement to study power and privilege.
Dean of Students Scott Bierman has also proposed a pilot of an Intergroup Relations class. The class would be a two credit discussion course, led by students who had been trained by the Dean of Students office.
To summarize, students proposed a requirement that every student take a six-credit course addressing power and privilege. At this point, the only proposal which would address such issues is a pilot program for a two credit elective course.
I personally think it’s a great idea to make this class student-taught. Faculty feels strongly that it is unable or unwilling to test out such a course. Ideally, students will be able to address these issues better than faculty because they have a deeper understanding of life as a student.
You’ve probably heard by now about Brendon Etter write-in campaign, but the website is definitely worth a look.
You should also look at his blog, which is pretty amusing.
At times, I thought I would never get back to campaigning. I’d look around me, at all I had to do to pull this community out of its shitbox of corruption, and I’d cry.
Why!? Why!? I’d scream to the sky. Why have I been cursed with this unending hope and ability and sexiness, with these essential qualities of hopeful and effective and sexy leadership?!
On the topic of mayors, a Carleton professor, Paul Hager, is running for mayor unironically. I had Paul for a CAMS class last term, but he gave me a grade I didn’t want. So I’m not voting for him. Here’s a video I made about the Arboretum for his class.
As some of you may know, Carleton is currently rewriting its graduation requirements for the first time in forty years. At the Education and Curriculum Committee meeting this week, we looked over the big plan for the new requirements. Here are some key changes:
- A required First Year Seminar taken for credit.
- All students required to take one class “analyzing” art and one class “creating” art.
- “Approved” Club Sports will be receive credit in the same way Varsity Sports do.
- New distro categories, most likely based on “skill sets.”
- Students required to spend senior year on campus.
- At least 198 of 210 credits must be earned from Carleton courses. This means nobody will be coming in with 50 credits from AP tests.
The last two changes are designed to make the graduation policy more equitable. Students from privileged backgrounds who were able to take a bunch of AP tests currently have the option of graduating early and saving $30,000. Under the new requirements, this wouldn’t be possible.
I’ll provide more details as I get them, and I’ll write a summary of the proposed replacement of RAD (Recognition and Affirmation of Difference).
On Monday CSA Senate discussed again the Campus Climate survey and the student response to it. Pablo Kenney summarized it by saying that the results reinforces whatever opinion you want them to. If you’re concerned about classism and racism on campus, the results confirm your belief that those are serious issues. If you think campus is perfect and everyone is happy, you can read the results to support that view as well.
I spent some time this weekend reading the appendix of comments that were submitted to the open-ended questions. The comments give a voice to the statistics that were presented in the main report. Respondents speak openly about how unhappy they are with the climate and how disillusioned they are with Carleton. It’s hard to walk away thinking that everything is fine. Here are some of the comments I found most telling:
I think that Carleton’s “bubble” makes interactions difficult. I think we forget the realities of the lives of those in the community around us based on the differences in issues facing us as students and locals in the ‘real world’.
Despite attempts at diversity, I still think Carleton College is largely made up of rich white kids who, while respectful and friendly, are hardly diverse.
Carleton would do well to be more honest with students as they enter the school. I would have chosen a different institution better suited to my personal interests and needs had I known what the brochure masks (or omits).
Last year I spent several hours making a robot Halloween costume. After Halloween, it sat in my room until then end of Winter term when I dragged it around campus and took photos of it. The result was A Day in the Robotic Life.
I linked it to the right, and recently one of the Shout bloggers wrote about the photo series. She mentions that I am planning a squid costume for this year, but I’ve been so busy with midterms and a statistics project that I haven’t even gotten started.
