In the coming years, the Amherst College board of trustees will be voting on a number of issues at the heart of student life. While the board strives to incorporate the views of the student body into their decisions, this is not always possible when the most recent alumni trustee graduated 20 years ago, in 1996. Even with coordination with the administration and the occasional student meeting, the board of trustees’ understanding of Amherst is not reflective of the full reality of our ever-changing institution.
Why does the integration of academic and social identities in college matter?
Make no mistake — there is a sports information crisis brewing at Amherst College. The numbers tell you as much.
Since 2006, Amherst has employed no fewer than six different sports information directors, commonly known as SIDs. One after the next has left after a year or two for a similar position elsewhere; this includes Amherst’s most recent SID, Mike O’Brien, who departed Amherst for the same position at a peer school, Wesleyan University.
Here’s something hard to argue with: political discussions are a net good. Through debates, people voice their opinions against dissenters, gain new perspectives and even strengthen and clarify their own positions. Especially on a liberal arts college campus like Amherst, where we are taught to challenge our personal convictions and conceptions of the world, debating the most pressing issues of fiscal and social politics is key.
The fossil fuel industry has an unwavering grip on our political system, our environment and, in the most extreme of scenarios, is leading the decline of sustainable life on Earth. This is about more than just living in a world without polar bears. This is a very real existential threat. We must fight back — and college campuses are the perfect place to start sending this message to the fossil fuel industry: Your profits do not take priority over our planet.
This is inspired by those who care for others and themselves, those who organize and write. Thank you.
Dear first-year me,
I hope this letter finds you well. Is it strange to be getting a letter from yourself? Perhaps it is, but knowing me (and knowing you), perhaps it is not. In any case, I wanted to share some thoughts as we head into the end of this semester and the beginning of next. Here they are:
When it comes to fighting climate change, we often deny ourselves the ability to make the changes that are in our power to make. This week at COP21, the international conference on climate change being held in Paris, world leaders will undoubtedly produce a plan that is insufficient to prevent the catastrophic events that we know will result if we continue to burn fossil fuels at anything close to our current rate.
