opınıons 3
editor: debra houchins opinionseditor@collegiatetimes.com/ 540.231.9865 COLLEGIATETIMES
october 27, 2009
The Collegiate Times is an independent student-run newspaper serving the Virginia Tech community since 1903
Your Views [letters to the editor]
Class of ’59 gave Ad depicted more than plaza coal pollution
W
hile I’ll leave it to others to address the many unfair criticisms levied against the Virginia Tech president and university leadership in Burke Thomas’ recent column, “Steger distracts the masses with bread, circuses” (CT, Oct. 22), I feel obligated to correct some serious misconceptions regarding the generosity of the class of ’59. The GLC Plaza project — something cited as evidence of the “general disregard for students” — was, in fact, cosponsored by students. Funds for the project, as clearly stated on the Campaign for Virginia Tech Web site, came not just from the class of 1959, but from the class of 2009 and the Hokie Parents Fund as well. Still, even though the response to the project has been overwhelmingly positive, I suspect the author and I may disagree about its value. But to suggest that renovating such a high-traffic area that connects the growing arts district and downtown with the lower campus demonstrates a disregard for students seems to be quite a stretch. Also, the opinions piece asked how much money could have been raised for scholarships and academics. Perhaps the author intended this as a wry rhetorical question, but the answer is anything but rhetorical. Money for scholarships? Well, in addition to the plaza project, the class contributed more than $300,000 for scholarships, namely the Emerging Leader Scholarship Program of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets. Support for academics? The class raised more than $225,000 to endow a university-wide undergraduate research fund, the proceeds of which will benefit students for generations to come. Finally, I think it’s worthwhile for both you and your readers to know that the funds raised by the class of ’59 for these specific class projects — the plaza, scholarships and undergraduate research — are but a very small fraction of its generosity. In addition to that amount, the class has donated nearly $5 million to the university it loves in just the last five years. These funds have been invested in programs and facilities all across campus, and it’s likely that many of your readers may have already benefited from their thoughtfulness. There’s more that could be said here that might add some much needed clarification to the opinions piece. I could explain how class gifts are gathered over several years and directed toward goals that the class agrees on at the beginning of the fundraising campaign. I could explain how those of us who are responsible for securing private support of this university work very hard to match donor wishes with both current and future university needs. What’s more, I could explain just how much this university has benefited from private philanthropy over the years. However, it might be simpler if your readers took a few moments to visit the university fundraising campaign Web site at www.campaign.vt.edu. There, I think they’ll find a pretty clear picture of how the tremendous generosity of our friends and fellow Hokies benefits them and ample evidence of our donors’ high regard for both today’s students and the generations just like them that are sure to follow.
Michael Kiser Director of development communications
O
n Thursday, the Collegiate Times published a letter to the editor entitled “Ad misrepresents coal issue on campus” (CT, Oct. 22). Ironically, this letter is woefully inaccurate and misrepresents both the Sierra Club’s Oct. 20 advertisement in the CT, as well as the issues surrounding our own coal plant here on campus. Contrary to the author’s claim, the advertisement depicts a typical utility-scale, coal-fired power plant, with both cooling towers and smokestacks clearly in view. The author makes this argument in order to inaccurately imply that coal plants are somehow less than dirty. Let’s be clear: Coal-fired power plants are massive polluters. All coal plants, including the Virginia Tech cogeneration plant, emit toxic pollution such as mercury, arsenic, sulfur dioxide, as well as global warming-causing gasses such as carbon dioxide. In fact, coal fired power plants are the single largest contributor to global warming in the United States, accounting for over 30 percent of all U.S. CO2 emissions. Global warming threatens to devastate our planet with severe drought, extreme weather and global sea level rise. Though he seems to overlook the true costs of coal, the author is right about one thing. If polluted water is too dirty for you, coal should be too. That’s because coal pollutes our water supply here in Virginia and around the world. A recent U.S. Geological Survey study tested fish from 291 streams and rivers across the U.S. for mercury contamination, primarily from coal plants. Every fish tested, in every body of water, came up positive. Mercury causes brain damage and other developmental problems in unborn children and infants. Thanks, king coal. Here in Appalachia, we should know better than anyone that coal is too dirty for campus. Coal mining in the form of mountaintop removal is devastating our Appalachian forests, blowing the tops off our mountains and filling our streams with rubble and waste from coal extraction and processing. To date, the coal industry has destroyed over 500 mountains and filled over 1,200 miles of streams. Here in Virginia, more than 25 percent of the total land area of Wise County has been strip mined for coal. I don’t speak for the Sierra Club, but I work with fellow students at Beyond Coal at Virginia Tech, and we strongly agree that yes, coal is too dirty for our campus. We don’t want to see our taxes and tuition spent on a power source that pollutes our air and water and jeopardizes our collective future by causing global warming. That’s why we are working to help make Tech a leader on renewable energy and the environment by calling upon our administration and faculty to make getting off coal a top priority. We know that we can’t just switch off our coal plant tomorrow. The technical challenge is substantial, but who better to lead the world to clean energy than the talented faculty and students of Tech?
Alex Darr Sophomore Coalitions coordinator, Beyond Coal at Virginia Tech
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MCT CAMPUS
VP for student affairs talks campus in open forum L
ast week I had the opportunity to “take the student pulse” during the first “The VP is In” session I was able to hold. We have begun these sessions at times when the SGA has offered me space in its Squires office to “hang out” and provide students with the opportunity to stop by and talk, ask questions, make suggestions, etc. Between 15 and 20 undergraduate and graduate students stopped by for last Thursday’s session, and we covered a variety of topics. There is keen interest in the environment and sustainability, illustrated by questions about why we are cutting trees down (some are diseased and dying), recycling efforts, how we can infuse environmental sustainability into the curriculum, ideas on saving energy, and even ideas about new forms of energy generation. We talked about the programs underway at some colleges whereby the power from student fitness center cycling is harnessed to help supply the energy needs of the campus. I hope that we will eventually be able to do this in our own McComas Hall. Financial issues were also at the forefront of the discussion. We talked about shrinking support from the Commonwealth of Virginia and how that will force Virginia Tech both to reduce budgets and to increase tuition and fees. The students presented concerns about those on tight budgets
and receiving financial aid. I also noted that the university is planning to use a portion of next year’s fee increases to generate more financial aid funds, and there was strong support in the group for doing so. I was impressed by the concern and compassion students were really expressing for other students. We even dealt with very specific questions: Why wouldn’t the Schiffert staff see me for medical consultation last summer? (You have to have paid the Student Health fee for the academic term during which you seek to be seen.) There were two very positive things I heard in the realm of academic issues. We talked about the opportunities for undergraduate research and there was a strong consensus: All you have to do is ask. Students told me of their successes in getting involved in this research and of how anxious faculty members are to give them a chance to participate. This was encouraging to hear! It was also good to hear one student ask me how he should go about telling someone that a certain faculty member was really an outstanding teacher and person. (Answer: Write a note to the faculty member’s department head.) The fourth and last area seemed to be quality of student life issues. I heard about SGA efforts to work with the Blacksburg Transit folks on installing GPS signaling systems in the buses so that potential riders could know
exactly where their bus was at any moment in time. Some who stopped by expressed concern about the need to address facility and furnishings issues in Squires and, as one student put it, the need to “liven up” the building (and we have plans to do this). We had conversation about how the Division of Student Affairs’ efforts to strengthen fraternities and sororities are sometimes misperceived as our “being out to get” these groups. The recent alert notice about the threatening YouTube page prompted a discussion of threat issues and when a notice versus a note is appropriate. Finally, one student proposed a specific way for him to partner with Recreational Sports to extend the season for tennis lessons. For our community, this is a glimpse into student concerns and issues these days. I’ll be providing more after the next session at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 18. I hope you’ll attend or send me an e-mail in the meantime. See you around campus!
EDWARD F.D. SPENCER -guest columnist -vice president for student affairs
Racism, sexism still prevalent today despite what many think I
t becomes exhausting to read comments like, “ ... you should take a hint from white people on how to deal with bigotry,” or “... blacks complain too much,” and “Gay people need to quiet down.” As someone who bridges the gap between agent and target groups, garnering all the privilege of race and gender but none concerning sexuality, I find myself at odds with my white and heterosexual friends. I am told that I either have a chip on my shoulder or that my struggle is nothing compared to that of black Americans. It leads me to wonder, why are white people so blind to privilege, and why do heterosexuals refuse to close ranks with the LGBT community? The most obnoxious comment made by heterosexuals is the one concerning gay activism. The claim is that if gays weren’t so loud and obstreperous about their civil rights and discrimination, heterosexuals wouldn’t feel the need to be so invidious. Interesting claim — especially when one considers the climate of America for the LGBT community sixty years ago. This was a time when the terms “pedophile” and “homosexual” were synonymous and videos were shown to students to teach them how to avoid “transients” such as vagrant gay men. And despite what science has debunked, such as the myth of the prevalent homosexual pedophile, we still find accredited universities such as Liberty teaching scores of students that gays, as a community, rarely experience legitimate relationships and women still need to submit to the will of their husbands. All of this is backed by the Bible, of course. On the other end of the spectrum, this frightening and bizarre denial of racism at Virginia Tech forces me to ponder what the experiences of my white counterparts have been abroad in America. I have witnessed comment after comment stating that racism is near its death and that black Americans are the true racists. Or even worse, “Black people use the N-word, why can’t we?” — as though somehow, if one group of people is doing something, it is a complete justification for another group to follow in its steps. I suppose that was the rationale for slavery at the time. Wasn’t everyone doing it? People confuse anger with racism. I also believe that communities as wellbonded as that of black Americans irk white people. All groups in power find themselves disturbed by the notion that those they have been stepping on are gaining agency. It is the same reason heterosexuals have become so nervous about the rising voice of
LGBT people. The clarion call of an empowered group concerned for its majority is one in which comfiture is involved. This group or that group is making things uncomfortable for said crowd in power. Women, for example, are often the scapegoat for male lust. Phrases such as, “She was asking for it,” and “Well, look at how she was dressed,” say enough as it is. When you can’t wear a skirt without conjectures of your promiscuity arising, there is a problem. Reticent homophobes jump on the opportunity to comment on the strident nature of today’s gays, stating all too unanimously that “they make things/us” uncomfortable or that “a little discretion would go a long way.” Ethnic minorities never fail to have foisted upon them the title of victim when a complaint of race is made, all the while being told by one person or another what a credit to their race they are. Forever marginalized to their racial identity and never a consummate human being, it can sometimes seem the only people allowed to have a multi-spectrum identity are white people. I find the social ills of bigotry everywhere. Just this last summer I was using the restroom of a movie theater and someone washing their hands next to me asked me if I thought the (insert any number of racial slurs for black people) were being too loud. I realized he had assumed a kind of camaraderie with me based on our white heritage, and that I therefore shared his racist values. Needless to say I made for the exit. Recent events on campus are more telling, such as white boards in residence halls that are commonly drawn with not only racist terminology, but a variety of homophobic and sexist commentary as well. The issue of politically correct speech has become a growing one in this country, and I find the only people against it are often white and heterosexual — though it is little wonder when one ruminates on the matter. With the power and representation white people enjoy in this country, there is little reason that strongly pejorative terms would have developed for their group. Though some would claim, as one such anonymous white person did in a comment on the Collegiate Times Web site, that white people “don’t allow themselves to be offended by such commentary,” I have to wonder if these people have ever considered the fact that maybe it is because no words truly denigrate white identities. The historical context of the N-word and the vehemence of the word “faggot”
make them particularly nasty monikers when handled negatively. In fact, the word “faggot” cannot even be used positively since no affirmative connotation for it exists. When people claim that words are no big deal I quirk an eyebrow, because if such a statement were true, the Nobel Prize for Literature wouldn’t exist and language — words being the unit by which it is measured — would be utterly meaningless. Such slanted wisdom is professed by those who have never experienced harassment at the hands of a word, stripping you of your humanity and reducing you to a stereotype. We live in a country that, despite the best professional advice of the American Psychiatric Association, allows Christian institutions to perform reversion therapy instead of solving world hunger and homelessness. How can anyone, with the climate that exists today, make the claim that bigotry is a dying attitude? Often times when I am speaking to someone who denies privilege I ask if they have taken a women studies course. The usual answer is no, but despite having never experienced such a class the general feeling is that it is one that bashes both whites and men. As someone who has taken two classes and is both white and male, I can say that is not the case. The call here is not that white people and heterosexuals throw their hands up in apology and surrender but that we recognize the privilege of our identities and work against such unmerited benefits. Men recognize the power they have over women just as heterosexuals and white people need to recognize heterosexism and white privilege. As a nation we need to realize that when one person’s rights are threatened, all of ours are on the chopping block. Instead of pointing the finger where it doesn’t belong, accountability and responsibility need to be the name of the game. Only through this kind of shared recognition and cooperation will any greater understanding of America’s social dynamics be had. When we can do this, a resolution will be fast in acting and maybe then such identities as “black” or “gay” will no longer define an entire human being.
JOHN DRIESSNACK -regular columnist
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