The purpose of this article twofold: first, to correct and respond to the piece published in the December issue of The Amherst Student on the Gamergate controversy and second, to dispel notions of the movement as a positive force for any greater good. Bluntly, the Gamergate movement is not actually about ethics in games journalism.
Amherst Athletics hosted an open three-on-three-basketball tournament for the entire campus last Friday after the Day of Dialogue. The event was an effort to bring the community together, as well as to promote the intramural sports program for this upcoming semester.
Amherst College resumed operations Wednesday after a winter storm prompted the college to cancel classes and shut down most buildings on Tuesday. Despite warnings from the National Weather Services of a “crippling and potentially historic” snowstorm, the storm proved to be milder than expected in the Pioneer Valley.
Interior renovations to Valentine Dining Hall completed over interterm drew mixed responses from students returning to campus.
Following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address at the United States Capitol on Jan. 20, 2015, there has been much speculation about the implications of his plans and policies and about his ability to deliver on these proposals. During his hour-long speech, the president touched on issues from unemployment to foreign policy and made a show of pointing out all the great strides his administration has made towards creating a better America.
As an alum of the college, I’m heartened that students have reset the institutional momentum to get rid of the Lord Jeff mascot. I’m still puzzled, though, by the responses of those who hang their support for keeping the mascot on a saccharine notion of the college’s traditions that withstands little scrutiny. For example, in his op-ed for the Dec. 10 edition of The Student, Michael Johnson ‘16 asks us to contextualize Lord Jeffery Amherst and his documented support of biological warfare against the Delaware and insists that we not “judge … his actions by today’s standards.”
Academics are a big deal at Amherst. The school does everything in its power to make sure the academic calendar suits faculty needs so that they can squeeze in every single reading, lecture and essay they see fit to assign. Last semester, a student wrote an opinion article in this very newspaper testifying to how the administration’s high and potentially unhealthy emphasis on schoolwork left other parts of our lives — intellectual, social, emotional — unsatisfied.
