Answering charges: a defense of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition
Guest ContributorPut more simply, we care a great deal about how discourse is conducted at a university and could not care less about what.
Put more simply, we care a great deal about how discourse is conducted at a university and could not care less about what.
Local communities should make their own decisions regarding re-opening.
The administration is asking graduate students and University workers to bear the brunt of these costs, while shareholders and the endowment are insulated from the restructuring. The University is asking us to make “sacrifices” while it proceeds to sacrifice us.
Instead of addressing the inequities and burdens of online learning, the destabilizing effect of lost income or housing, or the trauma of a public health crisis, Betsy DeVos has devoted the Department of Education’s energy to making the Title IX process more difficult for survivors.
During these unprecedented times, many people want to help the world get through the pandemic. Recently, I realized that in addition to social distancing, I can do something else — volunteer for vaccine human challenge trials.
Although this might seem at first contradictory to the stay-at-home orders, for those of us with the privilege and comfort of safe environments, now is our time to get involved. We came to Princeton to become leaders in our fields and serve the world – a pandemic isn’t the time to forget that mission, but rather the time to get to work.
This public health crisis has required us to ask all Princeton undergraduates to do a difficult thing: to complete their semesters online, and, in the case of our seniors, to forgo experiences that they had anticipated throughout their time here.
Our “belief” that this year’s room draw process “will run smoothly” isn’t based on pure optimism, but rather the culmination of several months of work and advocacy.
To argue that Mr. Lynch does not represent the student body is to argue that the backgrounds of people like myself are not valuable. The background of Mr. Lynch not being that of a “typical” Princeton student is in fact one of the strongest reasons for my excitement at his acceptance of this role.
By closing Pink House and its food-share, the University is unfairly targeting lower income students who often cannot afford the high fees needed for an eating club or dining hall plan, and instead find a home in a food-share that teaches them how to be self-sufficient.
Last semester, Exxon Mobil graced the grounds of Princeton campus as part of the Fall HireTigers Career Fair. All the while, the college divestment movement is gathering steam. Georgetown, sometimes regarded as more conservative than many of its peers, divested. Almost 400 members of Harvard’s faculty issued a letter in support.
The emergence of the bill and the University’s willingness to publicly support it without consideration for the greater context should make the University community wary.
"Mental illness is inherently isolating, but even more so when it forces you to live a lie. To protect yourself, it’s necessary to wear a facade, and it’s that facade that everyone comes to believe is the true you.”