scene
Letters
Summer 2012
News and views for the Colgate community
Taking Comics Seriously The Tenacious Tenney Silent Stones
The Scene welcomes letters. We reserve the right to decide whether a letter is acceptable for publication and to edit for accuracy, clarity, and length. Letters deemed potentially libelous or that malign a person or group will not be published. Letters should not exceed 250 words. You can reach us by mail, or e-mail sceneletters @colgate.edu. Please include your full name, class year if applicable, address, phone number, and/or e-mail address. If we receive many letters on a given topic, we will print a representative sample of the opinions expressed. On occasion, we may run additional letters online.
Let me second the feelings expressed by David N. Wilson ’50 (Letters, summer 2012). The Scene has become a wonderful conduit of the vitality and richness of current Colgate life for us old-timers. I was particularly interested in several seemingly disparate items in the summer issue. First, Professor Aveni’s find of an ancient Mayan calendar, which apparently “foresaw another 7,000 years beyond December 2012.” In his work Fractal Time, Gregg Braden describes the Mayan experience in roughly the same way — that thousands of years ago, the Mayans were able to ascertain that the universe moves in cycles, and that the end of the current cycle and beginning of the next will occur around the winter 2012 solstice. He believes that during this time, the earth will be moving out of a roughly 2,000-year-old era under the influence of the Piscean constellation — an age of separation, of divide and conquer — into one under the influence of the Aquarian constellation — an age of unity and holism, of drawing the global community together. As we move into this new age, perhaps this explains the growing interest in social entrepreneurial ventures such as those described in that same issue of the Scene: Maggie Dunne’s Lakota Pine Ridge Children’s Enrich-
Mayan calendar
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scene: Autumn 2012
ment Project and Dr. Mark Mandel’s hair care product project supported by the Entrepreneurs Club. When I was at Colgate more than 55 years ago, we did not have anything like the Thought into Action Institute or the Max Shacknai Center for Outreach, Volunteerism, and Education through which students are taught to create jobs for themselves through entrepreneurial means. I had to teach myself, and I’m still at it — overseeing a business improvement district in Washington, D.C. Previously, I led the transformation of a once-underserved commercial district that I had visited frequently 56 years ago (as a member of the Washington Study Group) for its one successful venture — a jazz club — into an eclectic blend of successful ethnic restaurants, nightclubs, boutiques, and art galleries that employ many of those living in the immediate vicinity. I applaud Colgate for establishing and supporting these campus programs. Stephen Greenleigh ’57 N. Bethesda, Md.
On football scholarships I’d like to extend my gratitude to the Patriot League and Colgate for deciding to offer football scholarships (Scene, spring 2012, pg. 25). As a proud former player, I’m excited that Colgate will have the added resources it needs to take the program to even more impressive heights, and I am deeply disappointed that some members of the Colgate family feel that scholarships should be reconsidered (for example, R. Michael Smith’s letter, summer 2012). Colgate produces the best student-athletes in the business. This is why we chose to better ourselves in Hamilton. The Ivy League doesn’t maximize team potential because its teams don’t participate in the national FCS playoffs; Colgate does. We chose Colgate because Coach Biddle exemplifies leadership and we
wanted a stellar education without sacrificing our athletic dreams. To say that we could never compete with larger schools is ludicrous; we came very close to achieving the ultimate reward in ’03 when we played for the national championship. Yes, Delaware imposed their will on us, but ask Western Illinois, UMass, or Florida Atlantic if we were competitive. Football scholarships will lead to a national championship some day. Look how close we came without them! Second, by implementing football scholarships, we will be able to recruit in such a way that when we win the Patriot League, we’ll be able to win a higher percentage of our postseason matchups. What better way to celebrate our 120-plus–year football tradition than to make the national title our goal every year? Third, football scholarships will offer opportunity to highly qualified students who would otherwise be unable to afford Colgate. Additionally, many football players graduate in the top 5 to 10 percent of their high school classes; we will be more competitive than ever in attracting them. More outstanding recruits will choose Colgate over the Ivies since we have differentiated ourselves with scholarships. Furthermore, Colgate football contributes just as much diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, religion, and geographic region to our campus as any other organization. Scholarships will allow us to continue to attract student-athletes from all walks of life without sacrificing academic standards. Colgate invests in people first. The football program doesn’t have to generate millions of dollars to be valuable enough to deserve scholarships. As with many other sports, football teaches the qualities that we pride ourselves on as Americans: hard work, competitiveness, perseverance,