If You Had To Guess Which Campus Produces More Open-Minded Mature Young Adults, Which Do You Think It Would Be?
[guest post by Dana]
Last month I posted about associate master at Yale’s Silliman College, Erika Christakis, whose email response to the Intercultural Affairs Council, a campus group concerned about culturally insensitive Halloween costumes, dared to challenge students to think critically for themselves about the consequences of institutional decision-making instead of individual decision-making. Christakis, refusing to kowtow to the campus scolds, pointed out the dangers:
“American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience. Increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition.”
This proved too much for the pampered students of Yale as her challenge resulted in a demand for her resignation, as well as that of her husband, master at Silliman College Nicholas Christaki who had defended his wife.
Last week Mrs. Christakis announced that she will no longer be lecturing at Yale:
“I have great respect and affection for my students, but I worry that the current climate at Yale is not, in my view, conducive to the civil dialogue and open inquiry required to solve our urgent societal problems,” she said in an email to The Washington Post.
Ironically, Mrs. Christakis taught the popular class, Concept of the Problem Child. The irony, of course, being lost on the problem children of Yale.
After Mrs. Christakis sent her controversial Halloween email, offended administration, faculty, and alumni voiced their disapproval of her in a letter of complaint, which read in part:
The contents of your email were jarring and disheartening. Your email equates old traditions of using harmful stereotypes and tropes to further degrade marginalized people, to preschoolers playing make believe. This both trivializes the harm done by these tropes and infantilizes the student body to which the request was made. You fail to distinguish the difference between cosplaying fictional characters and misrepresenting actual groups of people. In your email, you ask students to “look away” if costumes are offensive, as if the degradation of our cultures and people, and the violence that grows out of it is something that we can ignore. We were told to meet the offensive parties head on, without suggesting any modes or means to facilitate these discussions to promote understanding. Giving “room” for students to be “obnoxious” or “offensive”, as you suggest, is only inviting ridicule and violence onto ourselves and our communities, and ultimately comes at the expense of room in which marginalized students can feel safe.
While Yale administrators chose to indulge hurt and offended students, Dr. Everett Piper, President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, did anything but when confronted by an offended student on his campus. Dr. Piper’s letter is so uplifting and spot-on, that I’m publishing it in its entirety so you can read it and take hope that there are men and women of sound mind doing right by young people today:
This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a university chapel service and complain because he felt “victimized” by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13. It appears this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love. In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable.
I’m not making this up. Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic. Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims. Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them “feel bad” about themselves, is a “hater,” a “bigot,” an “oppressor,” and a “victimizer.”
I have a message for this young man and all others who care to listen. That feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon is called a conscience. An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad. It is supposed to make you feel guilty. The goal of many a good sermon is to get you to confess your sins—not coddle you in your selfishness. The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self-actualization.
So here’s my advice:
If you want the chaplain to tell you you’re a victim rather than tell you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you’re looking for. If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place.
If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn; if you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn’t one of them.
At OKWU, we teach you to be selfless rather than self-centered. We are more interested in you practicing personal forgiveness than political revenge. We want you to model interpersonal reconciliation rather than foment personal conflict. We believe the content of your character is more important than the color of your skin. We don’t believe that you have been victimized every time you feel guilty and we don’t issue “trigger warnings” before altar calls.
Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn: to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon is called guilt; that the way to address it is to repent of everything that’s wrong with you rather than blame others for everything that’s wrong with them. This is a place where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up.
This is not a day care. This is a university.
–Dana
UPDATE BY PATTERICO: That’s the kind of email you want to quote in its entirety. Maybe even twice!
Hello.
Dana (86e864) — 12/9/2015 @ 5:45 pmof the serious contenders for president, trump hillary and cruz are all ivy league trash
rubio isn’t and chris christie isn’t
knowing this doesn’t make it easier to pick one of these poopers though
but knowing this might make it easier for people to stay home
happyfeet (831175) — 12/9/2015 @ 5:55 pmI wonder if the Democrat candidates will be asked their opinion on the clash between free expression and hurt feelings on college campuses.
Ha ha — just playing with all of you. Of course they won’t!
JVW (d60453) — 12/9/2015 @ 6:02 pmProbably the one that WANTS to produce such adults. The other wants to produce leftist drones and cannon-fodder.
Ray Van Dune (1c68f7) — 12/9/2015 @ 6:25 pmThe job of both campuses is to direct youthful energy, if not to useful to at least innocuous ends. Didn’t a couple of recent presidents go to Yale? One an extremely intelligent Arkansas white trash who got in because of brains; and the other just an average rich kid who got in because of legacy?
nk (dbc370) — 12/9/2015 @ 6:34 pmbut enough about John Kerry, who was a legacy from his father, or take Howard Dean, please,
narciso (732bc0) — 12/9/2015 @ 6:40 pmThe Arkansas kid went to Yale Law. He was probably too much of a hick at age 17 to gain admittance to Yale in 1964, so he went to Georgetown where he finagled a Rhodes Scholarship thus greasing his way into law school in New Haven.
The average rich kid legacy at Yale ended up getting into Harvard Business School, probably because the Harvard folks thought his connections would net him a lot of money and he would then turn around and be a strong donor. Sorry it didn’t work out for them.
JVW (d60453) — 12/9/2015 @ 6:44 pm“of the serious contenders for president, trump hillary and cruz are all ivy league trash
rubio isn’t and chris christie isn’t
happyfeet (831175) — 12/9/2015 @ 5:55 pm”
That’s intelligent. Thanks, now I know all I need to know: Cruz is just like Hillary.
rrpjr (b5da43) — 12/9/2015 @ 7:27 pmFrom what I’ve seen, 70% of those currently amassing a staggering debt for the privilege of wasting four or five years in most universities would be better served at any one of the following publicly funded training camps: Fort Benning, Paris Island, Camp Pendleton, Naval Station Great Lakes, Lackland AFB, and Cape May.
Most would fail to qualify, and another significant fraction would drop out, but they’d be better for the experience. And for those who stick with it, they will be paid for their efforts. And for better or worse, their minds will be opened.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 12/9/2015 @ 8:16 pm… Parris Island, or like those of us who spent a 3 month vacation there called it … Paradise Island.
John Hitchcock (5f4b37) — 12/9/2015 @ 8:54 pmSmall colleges do not seem to be imnune, either. http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Pennsylvania-College-Building-Lynch-Memorial-Hall-Racial-Overtunes-Lynch-Clyde-A-Lynch-Lebanon-Valley-College-361200551.html#comments
If I were those students, I’d call on the Attorney General of the United States to investigate.
nk (dbc370) — 12/9/2015 @ 8:55 pmfacepalm with an old one,
narciso (732bc0) — 12/9/2015 @ 9:15 pmThe irony is that the socio-political mindset of these generally leftwing students is they’re, in effect, the perfect sitting ducks for Sharia-ism or Islamofascism. Or the perfect illustration of the theory that if you go far enough to the left, you end up meeting the far right in the middle.
Mark (74fce8) — 12/9/2015 @ 9:30 pmAh don’t forget Ft. Polk for basic and for advanced infantry training in the summer of 1969–a real education that was.
Comanche Voter (1d5c8b) — 12/9/2015 @ 9:33 pmUPDATE BY PATTERICO: That’s the kind of email you want to quote in its entirety. Maybe even twice!
Patterico (86c8ed) — 12/10/2015 @ 12:07 amoklohama wesleyan is not a football school who can’t afford its football or basketball players to refuse to play costing the school $$$! interesting comments from someone who “claims to be a follower of jesus.
nate (b535b4) — 12/10/2015 @ 12:08 amThat’s intelligent. Thanks, now I know all I need to know: Cruz is just like Hillary.
you’re welcome Mr. jr it’s hard to understand how all these people think we can keep dipping from the same tainted well over and over again and somehow expect different results
happyfeet (831175) — 12/10/2015 @ 2:16 am#16… I blame the failure of our public school system for the illiteracy displayed by Nate.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/10/2015 @ 3:19 amLike my father,I graduated from Chattahoochee High. I’d hate to think of these clowns polluting
Richard Aubrey (472a6f) — 12/10/2015 @ 4:08 amthe place.
If a football or basketball player refuses to play pull his scholarship and immediately escort him from the campus. It will never happen again, guaranteed. Everything with nate is money, money, money. Don’t be manipulated by money nate, stand on your own four feet.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/10/2015 @ 4:51 amI recommend party schools. Serious students can find conscientious professors who aren’t busy and are grateful to find someone interested in learning. Additionally, the competition is distracted with idiot nonsense and there’s always lots pretty girls around with time on their hands.
ropelight (20fd51) — 12/10/2015 @ 4:59 amNational Soros Radio is super-intrigued by the Bergdork Saga
tune in to hear Bergdork say
“I’m going, ‘Good grief, I’m in over my head,’ ” Bergdahl said. “Suddenly, it really starts to sink in that I really did something bad. Or, not bad, but I really did something serious.”
happyfeet (831175) — 12/10/2015 @ 5:24 amSpeaking of young people, the cognitive dissonance in the following is both fascinating and pathetic:
^ Such contradictions (and often resulting foolishness) are heightened by the lack of public discussion (that is very candid, very plain-speak) on political orientation and the biases of liberalism and conservatism (not to mention so-called centrism, whatever that actually means in 21st century America).
Mark (f713e4) — 12/10/2015 @ 7:46 amA 21st Century centrist Mark, is willing to allow thousands of moslems into America even if they kill his family and not just yours.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 12/10/2015 @ 8:45 amThis is going to incite employers to hire Yale grads.
Michael Ejercito (57412e) — 12/10/2015 @ 9:14 amDr. Everett Piper was following in the fine tradition of the Dean of Students at MIT in the Late-60’s who, when confronted by one of the decade’s interminable office take-overs said plainly:
askeptic (efcf22) — 12/10/2015 @ 1:07 pm“Anyone still here in 5 minutes won’t be here tomorrow!”
I got this far:
…before my head hurt so bad I couldn’t finish. It’s hard to blame the kids when the somewhat old children (I refuse to call them adults) that make up the faculty are so flippin’ stupid.
I wouldn’t wipe my rear end with an Ivy League degree these days.
arik (02de93) — 12/10/2015 @ 4:34 pmouchy tropes
happyfeet (831175) — 12/10/2015 @ 5:44 pm