March 29, 2012
Re: Commencement speaker too close to home
I found it hard to imagine that the writer of the editorial in the March 1 issue (“Commencement Speaker Too Close to Home”) had even read the front page story of that very same issue on the naming of Board Chairman A.G. Lafley as the 2012 commencement speaker—let alone grasped the extent of the credentials Lafley brings to this assignment. Since the author of the front-page story was Editor-in-Chief Allison Eck, it’s even harder to imagine that she would not have done more to reconcile the two pieces.
Not once did the editorial mention the fact that Lafley was until recently chairman of the board of Proctor & Gamble, one of America’s best-known companies. The only allusion to his role in life beyond chairing Hamilton’s board was the sentence “Success is not just found on Wall Street” (as if running a multi-billion dollar international manufacturing and marketing concern was no different than being a stockbroker), and a reference to his “creativity in the business world.”
But more than that, at no point did either the front-page article or the editorial acknowledge that Lafley’s leadership skills have won him some of the business community’s most prestigious awards, including Chief Executive Magazine’s “CEO of the Year,” the Peter G. Peterson Award for Business Statesmanship and the Edison Achievement Award. He has been called a “Level Five” leader, someone who exhibits “a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will,” by renowned business consultant and author Jim Collins. And he has been compared in professional stature to the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Just because Lafley’s is a familiar face on the Hamilton campus doesn’t disqualify him from being a great choice as a commencement speaker. Rather than dismissing him as the proverbial prophet in his own hometown, as the editorial suggests, Hamilton should be celebrating the fact that someone of such renown will be sharing his wisdom with a college he is proud to call his own.
–A. Barrett Seaman ’67
Re: Walking a mile in Campus Safety’s shoes
I would just like to commend the photographic and journalistic work done by Photography Editor Sara Meissner ’13 and photographer David Morgan ’15 for the feature “Walking a mile in Campus Safety’s Shoes” in the March 1 issue of the Spectator. This is one of the best pieces I have seen appear in the paper this semester.
Meissner provides a realistic rendering of not only the impressive gravitas and empathy, but also the humor and humanity that Campus Safety officers take to their job on troublesome weekend nights. They are clearly not, as some drunk students might think, merely enforcing arms of school policy, but they are men and women who do a difficult job that we could clearly make a little easier.
Hopefully, for those of us who are students in this community, we can not only appreciate the care and craft of this piece, but also take some of the lessons it offers to heart.
–Taylor Coe ’13