At this time of year — with big events on weekends and bizarre weather — it can feel hard to sit down and plow through homework. If you happen to be in a humanities class, you might often find yourself heading to class thinking, “who has actually finished all the reading?” Many courses assign infeasible amounts of readings to such an extent that even the professor will explicitly state that they would be not be surprised if many people hadn’t finished for class. Why is this the norm? Rigor does not necessitate large volumes of work.
As a print publication with nearly 150 years of history, the Amherst Student has a substantial archive of student writing. The Student’s office and the College archives house stacks of aged books with every issue that came before this one and will grow to include each one that will come after. Though this routine does document our history, successfully navigating our records seems harder than one might imagine. For example, how does one approach finding all articles on Asian American identities, or all articles discussing sexual assault?
Amherst is often described as an elite institution, a label that typically carries positive connotations. Specifically, “elite” invokes prestige and rigor, framing Amherst as a beacon of achievement in higher education. To a large degree, our campus community embodies these ideals through the various academic, athletic and personal accomplishments on which The Student reports each week. While The Editorial Board is certainly proud of our college, we also wish to investigate the uglier side of the “elite” label.
Critiques of social life at Amherst are nothing new. From the demolition of the Socials to various changes in party policy to the current glaring lack of diverse options, the search for solutions to the problems surrounding social life on campus has reached a new climax. It’s evident that the college experience extends beyond the academic and academically-associated extracurricular sphere. To hinder, rather than nourish, a portion of Amherst life that is undoubtedly crucial to the formation of meaningful relationships is unrealistic in today’s collegiate social climate.
At the recent journalism panel Amherst hosted discussing the 2016 presidential campaign trail, one of the speakers mentioned the ways in which our consumption of media is predetermined by algorithms programmed to show us content that aligns with our own opinions. For instance, a left-leaning person’s Facebook feed would mostly include articles that align with the political left. The knowledge that this type of invisible system exists, a system that extends far beyond the methods of Facebook algorithms alone, implores us to think critically about how we consume our media.
After what seemed to be a three week grace period, complete with sunny weather, manageable workloads and the lingering air of excitement about a new year, it feels like the semester has been sent into overdrive. Temperatures have fallen, making it that much harder to get out of bed in the morning, and the due date for that first round of papers is coming up soon. In this time of peak stress and anxiety, it’s easy for students to enter survival mode. It’s crucial for our campus to overcome this tendency and maintain the excitement and curiosity we started the semester with.
At Amherst and other similar elite institutions, there’s no question that money is a driving force. Wealthy alums have buildings named after them, the College spends thousands on coveted speakers and the AAS consistently touts its million dollar budget. The question of our endowment, and more importantly, its strong associations with powerful alumni have been brought to attention in a recent New York Times piece. The article features interviews with Amherst alums who have since retracted or reduced their gifts to the college in the wake of events such as Amherst Uprising.
