Bennett McIntosh columnist
Opinion
Monday April 14, 2014
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }
Avoid these worthless classes!
L
ast week, the University’s premier magazine of conservative thought, The Princeton Tory, posted a list (now retracted) of the sort that has become an unfortunate fixture of American conservative publications: a list of worthless college courses. Sprouting up everywhere from Conservapedia to Business Insider, the idea that American higher education has been overrun by a rash of useless classes has dug its way into the American consciousness. The alleged culprits for this epidemic range from lazy students to liberal professors bringing their skewed views of the world into the classroom, but the underlying message in dismissing so many courses offhand is that college education should fit strict ideals of usefulness in “the real world.” Of course, I cannot defend every course, professor or college attacked in such an article on the basis of their own merits, but creating a category of “useless” courses we are simply uncomfortable with is dangerous and threatens both the integrity and the utility of education. As the Tory post itself reminds us, “a liberal arts education is meant to challenge students’ perspectives, introduce them to new ideas, and prepare participants for successful careers in the 21st century.” How better to challenge perspectives and introduce new ideas than by examining, if not taking, courses which seem at first blush tangential and offbeat? Mocking a course based solely upon a cursory and closedminded reading of its online description represents a disturbing intellectual laziness. The mentality that it builds is worse — if we as students are to avoid exposing ourselves to new ideas because they challenge our perception of which ideas are connected, we are actively opposing the critical thinking and consideration that make a liberal arts education valuable. Worse is that so many such articles obviously set out to find strange and “useless” courses, and, in doing so, approach the curricula with a closed mind — reading to mock rather than to learn. If the reaction to reading about HIS 544: The Environmental History of Medieval Europe is to crack jokes about Al Gore’s “time machine device” and ignore the ideas at hand, we have little hope of learning from medieval deforestation, land use and natural resource exploitation — and perhaps of learning something about these struggles in our own time. A student who desires only to learn about what he or she already knows about can hardly be called a student at all — these classes are essential to our freedom to learn. But how do such classes prepare students for careers? A better question is how can we expect to prepare for careers in the 21st century without challenging our beliefs or making connections between seemingly disjoint ideas? It is all well and good to train future financiers, politicians and scientists in finance, politics or science, but the wellestablished curricula for these vocations represent the way the world is now, or more often the way the world was years to decades ago when curricula were set. To prepare us, the students, for modern careers, we need to study modern issues — issues which come from the interplay between widely divergent trends. Consider one of the courses riffed by the Tory post, AMS 358: Electronic Literature: Lineage, Theory, and Contemporary Practice. While modern college students are indisputably aware of the interplay between social media and their life, precious few have pondered what information technology means for modern literature. Before reading the course description, I hadn’t either, except to mourn the loss of paper books. But I’m now intrigued, for e-books are still a surpassingly static medium, and literature formats which can adapt to and grow with the internet can have vastly more influence. Imagine if The Grapes of Wrath had been published in the format of The New York Times’ features “Snow Fall” or “A Game of Shark and Minnow,” which integrate new formats into in-depth analysis. Anyone who hopes to take a career in journalism, policy or literature would do well to examine the direction in which literature and media are moving, and understand the pitfalls and strengths of this way of storytelling. Even if you, like me, are not planning a career in policy or journalism, the careers that we millennials will hold will be dependent on communication so understanding how ideas spread nowadays — whether via AMS 358 or “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame,” which tops Business Insider’s list — will be essential for everyone. And this goes for courses which touch on the interplay between, say, poverty and disease, or revolution and entertainment — without considering such interplays, no college can claim to educate effective leaders. So next time you see a silly or surprising course, use it as an opportunity to question your world, not to mock or lament how ridiculous college classes are nowadays. The trend is nowhere near as worrisome and corrupting as one might think, based solely upon list articles online and offhand jokes about underwater basket weaving. Don’t succumb to the temptation to dismiss potentially world-changing ideas as trivial or ridiculous. Instead, read the description with an open mind and maybe even take the class — you just might learn something. Bennett McIntosh is a sophomore from Littleton, Colo. He can be reached at bam2@princeton.edu.
page 4
EDITORIAL
vol. cxxxviii
Improving advising
A
s course selection approaches, students are again faced with the issue of academic advising. The courses students take at the University are integral to their Princeton experience. These important decisions are best made with knowledgeable and experienced advice, but such advice is not easily available. Though the University has some competent resources in the assigned faculty advisers, peer advisers through the residential colleges and contact information and databases such as Major Choices or course reviews, the Board believes that these resources fall short of their effectiveness due to their fragmentation, lack of publicity and near-sighted focus on just the next semester. We believe that increased training for faculty advisers and a focus on a longterm comprehensive path through Princeton academics, along with improved awareness of already available resources, will enhance the benefits of academic advising. Faculty academic advisers for underclassmen are assigned at the beginning of freshman year to oversee course selection. These advisers are not necessarily in the same field as the student and often have limited familiarity with courses and professors beyond their own departments. Meetings are usually only once a semester and consist of a cursory glance at preventing an overburdened schedule and ensuring that distribution requirements and
prerequisites are met before signing approval. The Board recognizes the difficulties involved in pairing student and faculty interests and sees the inconveniences of having underclassmen selecting their own advisers. The practicable improvement lies in equipping all the advisers with training necessary for knowledgeably proposing different possible academic paths. Instead of limiting the focus to creating a tolerable next semester, students would be better served if advisers took an interest in helping them see longer-term options and expanding to consider the practical benefits and experience of courses in different fields. Many of the more diverse and interesting upper-level courses require certain prerequisites, and advisers could be more helpful in outlining steps necessary to take a potentially desired set of classes in a semester or two. Princeton has great courses in all departments, and being able to encourage students to taste the unique skills of different subjects would provide a more complete education. Training faculty advisers to be familiar with the prerequisites necessary for advancing in courses in other departments as well as knowing the varied benefits of different courses empower students to chart a path of more interesting, advanced and comprehensive options. Some students informally find the guidance of older students, but not everyone has this convenience. The University does have several resources for students to reach out and connect
Marcelo Rochabrun ’15
with upperclassmen, such as lists on the Major Choices website and contacts of Peer Academic Advisers on residential college websites, but the fragmentation of these scattered listings and contacts weakens their benefits and does a disservice to the University’s efforts. Moreover, many students are simply not effectively made aware of these tools. Professors, preceptors, faculty advisers and even residential college advisers do not clearly or frequently promote these. For example, each residential college has a list of Peer Academic Advisers who are juniors and seniors willing to be a resource for other students. These advisers are from various departments, and the websites list the specific courses and programs they can advise on as well as how to get in contact with them. The Peer Academic Advisers should be consolidated into one searchable online resource. The consolidation would make it more accessible and user-friendly for underclassman and also more available for upperclassmen that are not part of the residential college system. In the meantime, to spread awareness of these helpful yet fragmented tools, RCAs and faculty advisers should be instructed to show these options to their advisees. Modifying the approach of faculty academic advisers and taking steps to publicize and make databases and resources more readily available would strengthen students’ academic paths and reaffirm the University’s comprehensive support of a truly engaging course of studies.
It’s all in the presentation Kai Song-Nichols ’15 ..................................
editor-in-chief
Nicholas Hu ’15
business manager
138th managing board news editor Anna Mazarakis ’16 opinion editor Sarah Schwartz ’15 sports editor Andrew Steele ’16 street editor Catherine Bauman ’15 photography editor Benjamin Koger ’16 video editors Carla Javier ’15 Rishi Kaneriya ’16 web editor Channing Huang ’15 projects editor Victoria Majchrzak ’15 chief copy editors Jean-Carlos Arenas ’16 Chamsi Hssaine ’16 design editors Helen Yao ’15 Shirley Zhu ’16 prox editor Urvija Banerji ’15 intersections editor Jarron McAllister ’16 associate news editors Paul Phillips ’16 Angela Wang ’16 associate opinion editors Richard Daker ’15 Prianka Misra ’16 associate opinion editor for cartoons Caresse Yan ’15 associate sports editors Jonathan Rogers ’16 Edward Owens ’15 associate street editors Lin King ’16 Seth Merkin Morokoff ’16 associate photography editors Conor Dube ’15 Karen Ku ’16 Shannon McGue ’15 associate chief copy editors Dana Bernstein ’15 Alexander Schindele-Murayama ’16 associate design editors Austin Lee’16 Jessie Liu ’16 editorial board chair Jillian Wilkowski ’15
NIGHT STAFF 4.13.14 news Konadu Amoakuh ’17 Jeron Fenton ’17 staff copy editors Elizabeth Bradley ’17 Jay Park ’16 contributing copy editors Keith Gladstone ’17 Anna Kalfaian ’17 Robin Spiess ’17 design Julia Johnstone ’16 Christine Kyauk ’16 Patrick Ding ’15 Hannah Miller ’16
Only ‘yes’ means yes Marni Morse
I
columnist
went home for a weekend recently and my parents, who I think of as fairly progressive thinkers, were having a dinner party with like-minded friends. The conversation drifted to the recent acquittal in Hanover of a Dartmouth student, who was on trial for allegedly sexually assaulting a fellow student. Both students had been drinking that night. There may have been a question about how clearly the female student said no, but she most certainly did not say yes to the sexual contact. I was dismayed by how closely the attitudes of the middle-aged women (and men) at my parents’ party tracked the thinking of Susan Patton ’77. At a recent panel held in the Whig Clio Senate Chabmer, Patton claimed that women are responsible for being raped if they dress provocatively and drink too much. As columnist Cameron Langford noted last week, I agree with the sentiment that we limit the sexual assault cases reported and simply exacerbate the problem when we choose to blame the victim. Patton and others
are mistaken about how sexual assault often occurs on campus. While Patton rambled in a feeble attempt to defend herself against a room of angry students, I realized that she just didn’t understand what is happening. Patton seemed to see only two scenarios where women claim rape. One, they said no and they were assaulted anyhow. Like just about every rational person, she acknowledged this was rape. The only other scenario she discussed was when a female agreed to have sex (i.e. consented by saying yes) and then regretted it in the morning and alleged rape. Patton called this “regrettable sex,” and so long as the woman truly was in a state to consent, Patton is at least correct in saying that this isn’t rape. Unfortunately, Patton and others don’t acknowledge that there are shades between what is obviously consensual sex and what everyone agrees is obviously rape. But those shades do exist, and they are considered rape under the law. If the woman is too incapacitated to consent, not saying anything must be considered “no” under all state law. If someone is taking advantage of another person’s inebriated state and coerces consent, this too must
be considered assault. And while these shades of gradation might be difficult to prove in a courtroom, jurors must approach the case with the understanding that the lack of explicit consent is considered sexual assault under most US state laws. When Patton doesn’t even acknowledge that it would be the man’s fault if he has sex with a woman too inebriated to consent, she highlights the problem that society does not understand what consent really entails and what most laws uphold. Instead, she wrongly blames the victim for getting drunk and lets the aggressor off scot-free. This scenario is common, and it is rape. It is occurring on college campuses across the country, and our parents, our school administrators and often our college policies don’t recognize this issue. With any luck, policymakers who have followed the recent Dartmouth case are appalled at the acquittal and will begin to realize that this situation is real and must be acknowledged as rape in order for this behavior to stop. SHARE is right that increased bystander intervention will help. But we need a shift in thinking and policy or even fewer cases of sexual assault will
be reported and the problem will only be exacerbated. The case at Dartmouth, as well as at Harvard, Columbia and so many other colleges, where reported sexual assaults go unpunished, demonstrate that we have an epidemic of rape on college campuses that requires policy changes by administrators. Policies and laws, and the people or juries judging these rules, must acknowledge that only a “yes” is consent. It is no longer adequate to espouse that “no means no” — rather, yes means yes. With such policies, juries would understand that what happened at Dartmouth has to be considered as rape, as no explicit consent was given. Then justice would be met and more victims would be encouraged to report these sexual assaults. These assaults are not just some drunken mistake. Given that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, now is a great time to have this discussion with your parents, grandparents and siblings to help them differentiate between true consent and sexual assault. Marni Morse is a freshman from Washington, D.C. She can be reached at mlmorse@princeton.edu.