The news of former professor Carleen Basler’s academic plagiarism came as a shock to the entire College community, with several students and faculty expressing intense dismay at the revelations about someone who is revered an idol, mentor and friend. While we at The Student do not wish to opine on the particularities of Basler’s case, we do wish to use this incident to highlight an important problem that not only plagues members of the College’s own academic community, but also elite institutions across the map: the lack of adequate support networks for the high pressures of academia.
Carleen Basler writes to all members of the College community.
Dear students, staff, and faculty,
I was dismayed by the mischaracterization of affirmative action portrayed in “Affirmative Action Detrimental to All,” an article published in The Student on Wednesday, Sept. 12. This article completely misunderstands the purpose of affirmative action. While I believe that racial diversity does in fact contribute constructively to any educational institution, benefit to the college community is not at all the function of affirmative action — rather, the goal of this program is to help bridge the achievement gap and ultimately to end the cycle of institutional racism that plagues our nation.
In what could prove to be one of their toughest weekends of the season, the women’s soccer team emerged undefeated from a pair of hard-fought NESCAC bouts. The Jeffs beat Hamilton 2-0 at home on Saturday and drew 0-0 at Middlebury the following day.
WOMEN
The women’s golf team made the short trip to Mount Holyoke on Saturday to play in the two-day Mount Holyoke Invitational. Hoping to build on last weekend’s successful NYU Invitational (third of 16), the Lady Jeffs took sixth place overall behind senior Liz Monty’s impressive individual efforts.
Propelled by lethal set pieces, superior skill and tenacious defensive pressure, the undefeated men’s soccer team steam-rolled past league rivals Hamilton and Middlebury last weekend. The Jeffs (5-0, 3-0 NESCAC, ranked No. 3 in the nation) trounced Hamilton 5-1 on Saturday before scraping out a 2-0 victory at Middlebury on Sunday.
I’ve always been a fan of using facts in opinion articles. When I was an editor for The Student freshman year, I noticed that, many times, people wouldn’t cite anything to support their argument. Sometimes it may have been because the facts would have repudiated their article, but, most of the time, the inclusion of supporting facts would have greatly strengthened what they were trying to say.
