17 Comments
Maybe you should take the Core first before protesting it.
Up next in Lit Hum– Toni Morrison!
The way to Kuwalik’s heart is through his stomach.
Another day, another protest, another bar.
PLUS: Minneapolis Community College students find novel uses for nooses.
AND FOR THE VISUAL AMONG YOU: Video from last night’s rally over at CTV.
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17 Comments
@hey Mike Nadler (or 2007, if you prefer), if you dealt with the administration so much when you were here, wouldn’t you know that these “concessions” are mostly changes the admin was thinking about and executing anyway…?
@EAL Well, I’m donating all my cash to athletics. I’d rather see winning sports teams (solid effort against OSU, basketball team!) than some bullshit and nebulously defined department of “ethnic studies”.
@Dumb Alums Dear douchebag alums, please stop your whining and threats. If alums had been generous with their donations in the first place, we may have already had a great Ethnic Studies department, and this shit would not have happened. If you loved your time here and got a good education out of it, then be generous for the sake of the University and the sake of (a majority of) it’s students. If you don’t want to be generous because your politics don’t agree with the administration’s, then that’s your decision, but don’t whine about it.
@alum not many of us with money support the idea of an ethnic studies department to begin with. sorry. we’d rather provide meaningful support for the disadvantaged in the form of financial aid than add another expensive layer of bureaucracy to make the university look superficially less racist (esspecially because it really isn’t anyway).
@Another Alum Alum’s have as much right as any to whine. For one thing, we’ve spent more time at the university that any current students(except 5th year seniors), we’ve paid more in tuition, and we’ve also somehow managed to complete the entire core without, for the most part, becoming racist bigots. many of us feel attached the the school and to the education we got, and it also saddens us to see things we were taught to value, such as the open flow of ideas and constructive debate, being trampled all over by a vocal minority of students.
@Non-alum You do have a right to whine, but I hate hearing people say things like “I’m an athlete and life is shitty for athletes, so I won’t donate”, or “I was fucked over by so-and-so department/person, so I won’t donate”. Personally, I will donate to improve the things I most dislike about my experience here.
@i have no intention of donating money to SDA and Student Services. As a student leader, they made my life miserable.
If I donate money for the improvement of those departments, it’ll be with the stipulation that everyone there gets sacked.
Right now my money (what little that I have to give) goes marked for Fin Aid. Few high school seniors care about the breadth of an ethnic studies department. They will care about their financial aid. And I don’t want any truly talented student to have to pass up the chance of studying at Columbia.
I think that’s the fundamental thing that gets lost in these waves of student “empowerment” and activism- the bottom line is that being at Columbia is a privelege, one that I’m thankful for, and hope to share.
@Indian Please get Gandhi’s picture of that. Seriously. Gandhi fasted knowing his death would fuck the British empire in India. He was protesting a regime that surrounded and opened fire on an unarmed group of 3000 people who were peacefully gathering at the start of the harvest season, killing 380-1000 civilians. These pricks are drinking Gatorade and throwing a tantrum for fuck-all. To compare them to Gandhi is way off.
@Lets not go that far, 2007. This is still your university but they’re being dumbasses. There were several in your year too. Long term they’re inconsequential.
@2007 Yes, long term the are inconsequential. However, the University bowed to scare tactics. That is what has personally offended me in this situation. At what point will the University not respond to these tactics? When will they learn that they have now committed themselves to listening to anyone who hunger strikes? I will not donate to a week willed University administration, and that is that.
And while we may have had a few dumbasses, none were as bad as this.
@CC 2007 Also, at least one was “as bad as this” – Bryan Mercer, one of the organizers/strikers (until this morning apparently), was CC 07 as well.
@2007 Yeah, but he is a super senior, so I would prefer to pawn him off onto 2008… can we?
@2009 I figured it would take a little longer than 6 months for alums to become self-righteous douchebags about donating to the university, but apparently I was wrong.
You got a damn solid education here, I’m sure. Stop pretending like one or two administrative decisions—however idiotic you think they are—can change that fact.
Yeesh.
@2007 I spent a lot of my time here dealing with the Administration. Knowing some of them personally makes me even more so dislike the way they have handled this situation.
And I do not doubt that my education was solid, however I doubt that has much to do with the Administration. I attribute that to the students I studied with and the professors I learned from, not from the Administration’s ballyhooing in Low.
Either way, as you have yet to realize due to the fact you’re still a student there, the only way that Alumni have power to affect change at the University is to withhold donations and funds. Without Alumni monetary support, the University cannot continue. So, while it seems like I am self-righteous, I am merely exercising the only mechanism that I have which will cause the University to listen to my desires. Until this Administration gets on a course that I believe to be correct, I will withhold my funds.
And one or two Administrative decisions can change the value of my education. It did so back in 1968 and it can do so again here. If you think otherwise, you’re clearly still too naive about how things work.
@2007 The strikers have completely and utterly tarnished this University for me. I cannot, and will not, donate another dime to the University now that I know they have capitulated to such childish, illegitimate individuals who do not represent even a majority of a minority.
I call on all my other Class of 2007’ers to do the same. This is not the University I was accepted to and it will not be one that I support.
@CC 2007 I don’t know that I never will, but after dealing with the CU administration for my four years (which, I beleive, coincided with Bollinger’s first four years, though mey have have started the year before), immediately followed by Ahmedinejad and now this, I certainly won’t give any money as long as Bollinger remains in charge.
@Spec's comments dont work
We act like we don’t care not because we feel defeated but rather because we, as a community, are embarrassed by these strikers. They don’t go through legitimate means of communication, they hold a gun to their own heads and here’s a doozy:
At the expansion meeting the negotiators REJECTED the idea that administrators put forth giving them the ability to talk to the Land Development Corporation directly saying something to the effect of “that’s your job. Not ours.” Um… excuse me? You want change but you’re not willing to actually talk to the main entities involved in the issue? So much for giving voice to the students.
If they were protesting like SHOCC or like any sensible group that decides “hey, lets arrange meeting after meeting until the administration actually wants to talk seriously” then yes, all of campus would support them.
We don’t support childish tactics. We don’t care if you don’t eat your broccoli.
What’s more we don’t appreciate being taken hostage. These strikers are more akin to Osama than they are to Gandhi.