Opinion
The chaining down of the Hamilton College student body
By Sophie Gaulkin ’17
October 6, 2016
Tags opinion
The McEwen Rock Swing was once a wonderfully odd hanging fixture that could be gradually raised to the second floor, provided that there were four individuals standing equidistant around the circular platform, swinging in synergistic harmony. This echoed the collaborative nature of its creation as a joint thesis project between a Kirkland art major and a Hamilton physics major. It likewise reflected the greater Hamilton values of risk taking, cooperation, and intellectual curiosity that transcend mono-disciplinary boundaries. Indeed, the College not only empowered but also encouraged students to pursue their freedom to choose their respective educational paths.
But the iconic, formerly interactive Rock Swing has been chained down—and so too have we.
Freedom lives in many forms, but for the purposes of this article it will be restricted to educational freedoms. Education, to be clear, extends far beyond the traditional idea of being exclusively classroom instruction and assignments. Particularly at this College, the holistic “college experience,” which encapsulates academics, social life, extracurricular activities, and even the quotidian details of life on the Hill, constitutes a Hamilton education. And, educational freedom, while not readily definable,
encompasses both positive liberty (the ability to carry out one’s free will) and negative liberty (the ability to carry out one’s free will without external restriction).
Without educational freedom, it is doubtful that Hamilton can provide the top-notch education it often boasts. Hamilton’s mission statement notes its emphasis on “intellectual growth, flexibility, and collaboration.” But how can we be expected to achieve these qualities? How can we be expected to develop, adjust, or work with others when we are shackled at the wrists and ankles by edcational oppression, forged on the anvil of the administrative blacksmiths, bound with the very same chains as the paralyzed Rock Swing?
At Hamilton, we must take back our educational freedom—the capacity to determine our own educational experience, without paternalistic and utterly Orwellian interference, so long as our actions infringe upon neither the safety nor the freedom of our peers. We must cast off these iron shackles and demand that our educational freedom be respected. We must end the injustice against which so many generations of Hamilton students have struggled. We must politely request that the administration reconsider the ban on pets in residence halls.
The Residential Life website betrays the administration, agreeing that education often takes place outside of the classroom and in the dorm room. It reveals, “The Office of Residential Life coordinates… the educational aspects of Hamilton’s residential system.” As such, educational freedom must exist in these student spaces. The students of Hamilton College, in accordance with their educational rights, ought to be allowed to act on their capacity to choose their respective college experiences, which for many would include the presence of a pet living under their care.
As some twisted form of amusement, the administration makes it clear in bold letters that pets constitute prohibited items—that is, of course, except for fish. This exception rubs salt into the wound; certainly, their choice was intentional. The pet that students are allowed to have is a limbless, aquatic animal that spends its life in a glass cage. How fitting it is that the pet we may have as our only nonhuman companion would analogously face a restriction on the freedom of self-determination. In the administration’s sadistic game, students with no other options for a pet must choose the sole creature that is a watery reflection of their own constricted circumstances. And so the oppressed becomes the oppressor.
In a summer housing guide sent as an email from Ashley Place, the assistant director of the Office of Residential Life, she warned students, “Anyone found to have a pet (other than fish) will be in violation of the student conduct code and subject to eviction, in addition to judicial consequences. Furthermore, they will be responsible for all costs resulting from any needed cleaning or fumigating.”
Fear tactics such as this have worked thus far, but we must no longer wallow in complacency as did so many students before us. We must rise above it. No—we must swing above it, in collaborative unity, as if the Rock Swing lost its chains.