In light of the party policy, it’s clear that more needs to be done to foster open communication between students and administrators before major policies are implemented or changed. This, however, is something that should not be limited to party policy. Active, engaged and open discourse between the administration and students must be a cornerstone of how the school functions and operates. Moreover, transparency on behalf of the administration should be required even when it comes to seemingly banal alterations, such as wording or policy.
It’s only been a month into 2018 and already we boast a new milestone in human ingenuity. After 79 attempts that spanned several weeks, Zhongzhong and Huahua, the first two monkey clones in the world, were born in the Institute of Neuroscience at Shanghai. Their names form “ZhongHua,” which means “the Chinese nation or people,” as homage to China’s leadership in primate research in recent years.
Things have gotten a little crazy here at Amherst College. Crazy that a dean showed up to walk through Crossett Christmas. Crazy that these are the things that our student body apparently thinks we should “make some serious noise about” when a modern-day gestapo is deporting people from communities in our own backyard. But this is where campus discourse is at right now, so what do we do with that?
2017 ushered in an age of reckoning for sexual harassment across many industries, notably in entertainment, government and sports. We’ve seen the rapid denunciation of big names like Harvey Weinstein, Larry Nassar and Al Franken. We’ve seen powerful court testimonies by strong women like Aly Raisman, Taylor Swift and countless lesser-known survivors. We’ve seen unprecedented media coverage of a problem that has existed for far too long. Now, in 2018, we have much higher expectations for workplace conduct.
Last week, I wrote an in-depth article detailing my issues with the Amherst party policy. I had to read through the policy many times, and I also had to think very hard about what I was writing. The laws of the universe dictate that, since last week was serious, this week’s column must be silly and mostly irrelevant. Sorry, editors! There’s nothing I can do! It’s the law of the universe! With that in mind, here are “Seven More Things I like or Don’t Like”:
We, the Editorial Board, were not planning on writing the editorial on this topic. Jake May’s opinion article clearly articulates the concerns many on campus have with the updates to the party policy that were released last week. However, in light of yesterday’s email from Chief Student Affairs Officer Suzanne Coffey and Senior Associate Dean of Students Dean Gendron, we felt that it was our responsibility to respond.
The recently-updated party policy is thoroughly disappointing. It further infantilizes students, and does little to nothing to fix issues it should be designed to remedy. In fact, there is so much wrong with this policy that I couldn’t even get to all of it; I addressed only what I found to be the most egregious issues with the policy.
