The Spectator - Opinion - Hamilton College

Hamilton should “Know Thyself” to sell itself

April 24, 2015

Like it or not, Hamilton runs a business. Education is certainly a loftier and more valuable product than most, but at the end of the day the College has to sell itself to keep the lights on. This constant selling comes in two parts. This past Monday we saw one half: Accepted Student’s Day. For one day, the College throws its doors open, pitches like there is no tomorrow and hopes the families who visit will buy in to the Hill. The second half exists more broadly and elusively, although it is perhaps more important: alumni giving. In that case, the school drums up nostalgia more than flip-flops to get the checks. They invite you back to reminisce and hope they generated enough fond memories to earn your monetary love later on. While this all sounds very cold and economic, it is also the truth of how the school does, and must, work. More ...

Emergency responses need improvement

April 17, 2015

We can certainly all rejoice the fact that the threats of a bomb and a shooter on Monday turned out to be completely harmless, but given the gravity of the situation, the initial campus reaction to the events seemed to be an underreaction. Nevertheless, the threats allowed the Hamilton Emergency Response Team to conduct what turned out to be a practice run of their procedures. In the unlikely situation that the campus encounters similar threats, we will undoubtedly be more prepared. More ...

Letter to the Editor

April 17, 2015

I write to commend the Hamilton Emergency Response Team (HERT) for its response to Monday’s incident. The HERT team’s continual communication with the campus community and outside world, as well as its effective coordination with a slew of local, state, and federal agencies, offers a sterling example of effective crisis management in higher education. Having served as Director of Emergency Management at a comparably sized liberal arts university in Virginia, I understand firsthand the complexity and difficulty of managing large-scale emergencies on a residential college campus. Hamilton students, faculty, and staff should make a point to thank HERT members for the quiet, vital work they do year-round to prepare the Hamilton community for the unthinkable. —Austen Givens Clinton, NY More ...

Heather MacDonald brought a different perspective to Hamilton

April 17, 2015

Last Wednesday April 8, 2015, the Alexander Hamilton Institute co-sponsored a speaker with the Hamilton College Republicans that offered a very different narrative to the policing crisis facing American right now. Heather MacDonald a well-respected academic and political commentator, defended Compstat policing. More ...

We should celebrate our WiGo victory

April 17, 2015

In what WiGo executives called an “improbable victory,” Hamilton College beat Suffolk University 122-94 in the final round of the WiGo Madness Tournament on April 13. This means that we had more attendees, invites, pictures, new users and up-votes than Suffolk, earning us the most points. In the second-to-last round against Quinnipiac University, almost 1,400 Hamilton students joined the WiGo event and 93 percent of our user base was in attendance. All of our hard work and unity paid off—WiGo will be hosting a party for us on May 2 with a value of $8,000. More ...

Letter to the Editor

April 10, 2015

I entered Hamilton in 2010, although for health reasons took a two year leave absence. Having regained physical and mental balance, I was excited to contact the dean of students about my plans to return to campus. Eager to be back in the classroom, I began scrolling through different departments’ faculty pages to see what new faces and expertise had come to campus since I’d been away. I was alarmed at how many white faces my cursor moved over, how few faculty of color I would have the opportunity to learn from and with. Furthermore, during my leave I contacted four professors to tell them how much I continue to learn from conversations that took place in their classrooms on campus. In hindsight I notice that three of the four were faculty of color who have since left, either by choice or force; the last, a white woman, has also decided to seek work elsewhere. It would be willfully ignorant not to take those numbers as evidence of a larger climate of white supremacy and exclusivity on campus that not only denies opportunities to deserving academic professionals, but also to its students. Hamilton’s retention of faculty of color (and students, for that matter) is inexcusable and embarrassing, and it is out of love for this community that I insist on holding it to a higher standard. A quality liberal arts education and community conducive to learning cannot be offered without all feeling and being welcome, without a faculty and student body diverse in experience and perspective. In order to achieve Hamilton’s fullest individual and institutional potential, we must collectively commit ourselves to that standard. More ...

Study abroad programs are more than a bucket list item

April 10, 2015

Last Monday, the administration hosted a mandatory pre-departure session for sophomores studying abroad in the fall. The session was intended to provide the students with necessary information before they depart for their study abroad experiences. The KJ auditorium was filled with students listening with general disinterest. That disinterest could partially be attributed to the boring nature of the session. However, that lack of interest could also be attributed to an issue more critical: Studying abroad has become way too ordinary. More ...

On the word “slore” and the responsibilities of free speech

April 10, 2015

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the significance of free speech at Hamilton. Last week, I wrote an article about accountability. I recognize that both of these subjects have been sufficiently beaten to death in recent months, and I am just as reluctant as you are to get back into the weeds of what should and should not be deemed acceptable in terms of expression and anonymity. However, here I am. More ...

Racial understanding will not come from apologetics

April 10, 2015

On Wednesday, April 8, Heather MacDonald delivered a lecture entitled “Are Cops Racist?” which prompted a largely negative reaction from its audience. MacDonald is a noted fellow of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank which helped pioneer the “broken windows theory” of crime-prevention. She ascribed racial-profiling to the prevalence of black-on-black crime, and repeatedly insisted that the only reason cops go out looking for young black men is that the most common perpetrators of violent crimes fit this description. Her blatantly apologist views were coolly met, and questions directed at her by the audience carried a critical tone. Moreover, MacDonald demonstrated the reactionary thinking with which the political right is responding to movements such as Black Lives Matter, and which only worsens the quagmire on the road to greater racial equality. More ...

The Soapbox: Hamilton students should express disapproval towards Indiana’s religious freedom law

April 3, 2015

A bit more than a week after Republican governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law, people have made their animosity towards it clear. A law allowing businesses to refuse serving same-sex couples on religious grounds creates an unspeakable precedent for interfering with a person’s right to choose with whom they want to share their lives. The signing of this bill seems to be a step backwards from the progression in civil rights legislation that has taken over forty years to realize. When considering the Religious Freedom Bill’s place in the broader historical strides our country has made, one can only wonder how such a bill can be justified. More ...