The
Davidsonian
Independent Student Journalism Since 1914
inside
davidsonian.com
A popular app is back; campus reacts to YikYak
Volume 120, Issue 1
September 15, 2021
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Rachel Clubine Horowitz ‘23 breaks down Texas’ abortion bill
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Campus athletics plans to revamp the football stadium, add new track facilities
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Eleven life lessons for freshmen from your friends at the Yowl
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Carol Quillen Steps Down As President
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BEN PATE ‘22 (HE/HIM) FEATURES EDITOR
n August 1st, 2011, Carol Quillen became the 18th president of Davidson College and the first woman to hold the position. Over her decade-long tenure, Quillen has overseen significant changes to Davidson’s campus, with the goal to “exemplify what liberal arts education needs to look like in the 21st century.” In pursuit of this goal, Quillen has overseen the construction of the E. Craig Wall Jr. Academic Center, a locus of science and art on campus, as well as the Jay Hurt Hub for Innovation and Entrepreneurship just across Main Street, emphasizing the connection between liberal arts education and the modern job market. This August, President Carol Quillen sent an email to the Davidson community announcing that the 2021 - 2022 academic year would be her last year as president of Davidson. The Davidsonian sat down with her to talk about her time at Davidson, her favorite parts of the job and what the future may hold both for her and the college. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Davidsonian: We thought it would be fun to ask a question that Davidson asks all of its applicants when they apply: why Davidson? Carol Quillen: I knew about Davidson as a great school, I had known about it for a long time, but I didn’t know much beyond that. Then the search firm called and said ‘we think maybe this might be a good fit for you, are you interested?’ That was incredible; I felt fortunate to be asked, and I really fell in love with Davidson through the search committee. [The committee members] were all really different. They had different convictions, they had different beliefs, they had different politics, they were of different faiths. And yet, they all seemed like really decent human beings. And they all attributed in part who they had to come to Davidson. And I just thought that it was a really remarkable institution that could enable such different individuals to become the person that they felt they were kind of called to be. TD: What types of opportunities did you see at Davidson when you decided to accept
the job? CQ: Davidson’s sense of what leadership and service meant resonated with me. For me, leadership is about creating a context where a community or institution can make changes that it wants or needs to make and get there. It’s really about creating a context for change and opportunity, and I saw that possibility at Davidson. I also saw the opportunity to think about a liberal arts education, just to figure out ‘what does a liberal arts education need to look like in the 21st century?’ Davidson was perfectly positioned to exemplify what that is. And I thought being a part of that community would be really exciting. TD: You mentioned being in a place where as a community, we have the opportunity to make the changes that we need to make. Can you talk about that a little bit more? CQ: Davidson had changed so much over time, from the time that it was founded in 1837 to big decisions made about who got to be at Davidson, who got to teach at Davidson, who was able to walk on the campus at Davidson. And I think that is a function of Davidson’s grounding in particular theological tradition, that is always itself reforming in light of what God is calling us to do now. And so there was a history of change, a history of innovation at Davidson. It was, for me, sort of becoming a part of that [history] rather than creating something new. Continuing on that trajectory of exemplifying what liberal arts education needs to look like in the 21st century: commitment to respecting the dignity of all human beings and this commitment to the quest for truth. What does that look like now? What does it mean to prepare students for lives of leadership and service now? How do you cultivate human instincts? The abiding nature of these questions and the permanence of the values to which Davidson remains faithful were important to me. TD: Is there one thing that you’re most proud of having accomplished at Davidson? CQ: So the things that happened at Davidson during my time here are not my work. They’re a result of the efforts of the people that made those changes happen. We asked ourselves: ‘if you think about liberal education as a philosophy of education that’s focused on cultivating deep talents
President Quillen stands in front of on campus. Photo by Sydney Schertz ‘24. and capacities, in addition to imparting specific skills, what does that need to look like now? What do leaders and people who live their lives leading and serving the world need to know how to do now?’ I think the college
came up with lots of interesting answers to that which led to new programs of study, some
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AFR 222 #AbolishThePolice Course Makes Local Headlines SOHAN GADE ‘23 (HE/HIM) SENIOR STAFF WRITER
DAVID SOWINSKI ‘25 (HE/HIM) STAFF WRITER
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t the beginning of this semester, students enrolled in #AbolishThePolice, an Africana studies class, learned that they would have to move classrooms due to safety concerns. “The week before classes started, we got an email from the professor telling us that the location of the class was changed,” said Jo Papadopoulou ‘25, an intended Mathematics major from Greece. Papadopoulou’s classmate Emma Shealy
‘22 said that “It was pretty jarring to think [that there might be] a risk of something happening to us [...] because I was kind of really ignorant about the controversy around the class, but it’s also just kind of a reality check.”
culated headlines about the class, which has garnered criticism from some conservative alumni. “This is not what needs to happen in our colleges,” said Representative Greg Murphy (R
The class provides the opportunity for Davidson students to examine a complex issue that is entrenched in American history. According to the course description, #AbolishThePolice “explores the specific relationship between Blackness and policing in the U.S.” Over the summer, news networks cir-
- NC03) ‘85 in an interview with Fox News. On the other hand, several alumni voiced support for the course. In an interview with the Charlotte Observer, Assistant Professor
of Education Studies Dr. Chris Marsicano ‘10 explained the course’s relevance to Davidson’s ethos. “Our mission is to create creative and disciplined minds for lives of leadership and service, and you can’t lead or serve the public without understanding multiple, different facets of the public,” said Dr. Marsicano. Controversy aside, students enrolled in the class feel that it will give them a unique opportunity to understand and critically examine their personal histories and their peers’ relationships with policing. The makeup of the class is one aspect that facilitates such
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