Today, people are far too quick to allege racism, and even quicker to mistake disparate impact for it. From graffiti in Ferguson saying, “The only good cop is a dead cop” to unsanctioned protests in New York City where protesters chanted, “What do we want? Dead cops!” the police have been the most recent to fall victim to such allegations.
Amherst’s community has a certain uniqueness: Though diverse, it acts as a unit. I never thought that such a community could exist because I have seen that differences usually breed conflicts. I did not write this article to praise the Admissions Office on their selections, although they are indeed worthy of it. Instead, this article is about the loneliness experienced by some international students on this campus in spite of everything, and about the unbearable pain of internal conflicts — it is about the process of adopting Amherst as a second home.
At this point, it’s hard to defend keeping the Lord Jeff as our mascot. Lord Jeffery Amherst advocated genocide against Native Americans. By celebrating him as our mascot, we tacitly condone both the man and his actions. Not only does this conflict with the values of any modern-day liberal arts institution, our designation as the Jeffs is a cruel irony in the face of increasing pushes for more diversity and representation from Native American students.
What is your favorite sitting position in the classroom?
A. Legs spread, hand slung over the chair next to you, lazily twisting up your wrist instead of raising your hand to respond to a question.
B. Slightly in front of everyone else, even when the class is arranged in a semicircle/round table/other ostensibly egalitarian form.
C. Just sit somewhere, I guess.
The vote in mid-December by the American Studies Association to approve the academic and cultural boycott of Israel (as part of a larger call from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement — a movement of more than a hundred Palestinian civil society organizations that includes doctors, lawyers and teachers) unleashed a furious and punitive backlash. The resolution was years in the making, the result of open forums and a membership-wide vote. The boycott does not target individuals, only institutions. Israeli scholars of all political persuasions may visit, lecture and publish.
Surely we deserve to be annoyed at somebody. An obvious choice is Jim Larimore — after an exhaustive national search to find him, did he not realize the sort of job he was getting into? If he didn’t realize that becoming Dean of Students at Amherst after a number of very public failures at the College, would mean that he would have to institute changes in “organization, staffing and management,” then either we failed to mention that to him or he somehow failed to ask about the job description.
Pathways is an alumni-student mentoring program that launched in Sept. 2013 after four years of collaboration between the Career Center, Alumni and Parent Programs and Information Technology offices.
The mission of Pathways is to connect students with alumni mentors through a structured framework and to encourage critical and reflective thinking about academic, professional and life goals for both students and alumni.
