The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Commentary April 29, 2005

Belachew supports Dye, other letters

Open letter to the Students:

After reading last week’s Oberlin Review, I was disappointed to see your interest in having a vote of no confidence on Nancy Dye as part of the referendum. As a person who has gained a certain amount of your trust, please allow me to be honest as I share my concerns about the plan. As one who believes in fairness and fair process, I felt compelled to bring what I know so that you may consider another point of view. At the onset, however, I must stress that in writing this letter I am not attempting to influence your plan one way or another.

I only feel that it may be in your best interest to have more information on which to base your decision. I will take this opportunity to express several accounts I have observed that have shown me how the President has attempted to be accountable to your requests. I want to give you my account before you go into what I would call unfair public humiliation.

President Dye, in my opinion, has been student-focused ever since coming to Oberlin. As a person who has worked under three presidents and acting presidents, I can honestly say that I have found Nancy Dye to be very student-centered. Her interest in listening to students during the strategic planning sessions cemented my confidence in her interests in the well-being of Oberlin College students and Oberlin at large. Through the hard work of multiple constituencies, at the end of the process student voices were incorporated. OCDC (which facilitated those student forums in the fall) and I have been very satisfied with President Dye’s reception and commitment to integrating student recommendations and concerns into the planning document. This commitment from her and from members of the Strategic Planning Committee, in my opinion, assured that students’ voices would be present in this major historical plan of Oberlin College

During the student planning sessions (in November and February), student evaluations overwhelmingly called for the resolution of one main issue: how to continue conversations between the administration and students. Senate had success in answering this major student concern in several forums. OCDC has fulfilled its role (and continues to do so) with assisting Senate with the forums. To my knowledge and in my experience, these forums have been a good experience for all who have participated — the President, other administrators and students; furthermore, a new precedent has been set for information to be transferred between students and administration directly. In my experience here, these forums have really set a different way of communicating and I look forward to them continuing!

Senate has begun extremely important work with these forums between students and administration in the last month and a half. They have opened up students’ relationships with the administration and Nancy Dye, and allowed a venue for students to understand how the institution works. I recommend that Senate continues this work into next year — making plans to have these forums be a normal part of campus culture. Please take advantage of these efforts.

Finally, as I have read in the Review, I believe that the dean’s search has become problematic. I do not and will not speculate on what happened, but I do believe that you have every right and the most access of anybody on campus to figure out what is going on. I highly recommend that you act with the knowledge that how Oberlin is represented may affect the success of our dean search as well as prospective students’ decisions to come to Oberlin. At this point, our actions really deter people from considering us seriously. All I ask is that you take on this task through your own work and not hearsay. This is the strength of being a student at Oberlin — you are free from persuasion and are able to act on your own accord for the benefit of everyone.

This, as I see it, has been the strength of OCDC and of the Ombudsperson’s office as well. It is through my position and my work, uniquely placed within this institution, that I have been a witness to many of these events — not in the least, President Dye’s own work.

Having said this, I hope I have shed some light on how President Dye has made concerted efforts to include students in the college process. I believe that while you have every right to vote on the referendum, I ask that you consider the above information as well and ask that you act with fairness.

–Yeworkwha Belachew
Ombudsperson 


To the Editors: 

I am writing this letter as an individual with strong concerns, not as a student senator. 

On Wednesday night Student Senate held a meeting attended by the Dean of Students and the Ombudsperson. The Ombudsperson told Senate and other students in attendance that students should not criticize the administration of Nancy S. Dye.  Why not?  Not simply because those critiques are supposedly wrong, but because they are dangerous.  According to the Ombudsperson’s logic, any critique of policy and process is actually a personal attack on an individual.  Furthermore, we should suppress public dialogue about the College’s few but prominent unsolved problems because it might scare away prospective students. To quote: “When we do this, we put Oberlin in a bad light.  Who will want to come to Oberlin if we do this?” 

I find this line of argument deeply disturbing. The manner in which it was delivered — emotionally manipulating involved and concerned students — is even worse.  It is hypocritical to advertise Oberlin as place that welcomes activism while trying to suppress critical opinions.  It is hypocritical for those whose jobs involve the facilitation of dialogue to resort to such unacceptable tactics to suppress it.

To personalize a debate in this way is demeaning to all sides, especially those who, despite claims to professionalism and neutrality, are unable to separate disapproval of policies and disapproval of individuals.  Moreover, the notion that prospective students will be scared away by a campus full of strong opinions is insulting to those very prospective students. Prospective Oberlin students are intelligent enough to recognize the value of our school regardless of debate.  To call critical opinion dangerous is offensive to the tradition of intellectual freedom that Oberlin claims to stand for, and to the principles of democracy and dialogue that we all claim to share.    

–Marshall Duer-Balkind
College junior


To The Editors:

I’m writing in concern over the lack of wider support, response and attention to last weekend’s conference, Working Our Way Home: We Are the People We’ve Been Waiting For. Thanks to the year-long dedication of co-chairs Heather Griffin and Andrena Hawkins, WOWH provided an opportunity to revisit the concerns and discourses ignited by Burnin’ Closets: BlaQueer Conference, convened in November 2001 and co-organized by myself, among a trio of self-determined Black queer students. As student organizers, with very scarce resources and elusive institutional support, Griffin and Hawkins spearheaded this monumental and very, very rare event.

Despite passionate student support and participation for the conference, which included participants from various local campuses, the absence of wider attendance and support in terms of the student body reflects an unfortunate pattern in which marginalized student communities continue to be relegated to a competitive, as opposed to collaborative, status with each other in terms of resources, self-determined education and communal affirmation.

It is confusing and disappointing, for example, that the full-length article on the conference, submitted by Review writer Morgan Shelton, somehow didn’t make it to print. That the maverick Deep Dickollective — a crew of Black queer illuminati bombing the desolate discursive space between heterosexism and hip hop culture — and their return to campus for WOWH went by undocumented is particularly criminal. One is reminded of Audre Lorde and Essex Hemphill’s impactful visits to Oberlin, which are very scarcely documented and contextualized in Oberlin’s cultural memory.

Many of us involved with the conference consider these oversights highly disconcerting and reflective of an institution that freely appropriates credit for championing “diversity” while student-level initiatives that represent this “diversity” continually catch shade and receive little support or communal acknowledgment for their indeed revolutionary work.

Yes, similar views have been expressed before and are sure to be voiced again. When Black queer Obies commence once again to enact conferences and events of this renown, it is expected that their generous gifts to the larger Oberlin community will be honored in proportion to the relevance and urgency of their efforts.

–Jason Tompkins
OC ’04 and ZAMI co-chair ’99-’01 


An Open Letter to the Oberlin Community:

I’m writing to express my enthusiasm and gratitude for the diligence and professionalism demonstrated by students at Oberlin’s recent conference: Working Our Way Home: We Are the People We’ve Been Waiting For. Special thanks to the year-long dedication of co-chairs Heather Griffin and Andrena Hawkins.

As a seasoned performer, author, scholar who has taught on both the secondary and post-secondary levels; and who navigated the presidency of both Black Student Alliance and LGBT Association while an undergraduate at Duke, it is clear that Oberlin has a very special community of students. As important as the black and queer students who organized the event were the numerous allies of this community who value their peers and the challenges that they must mediate daily in an environment that sometimes makes the ridiculous demand that they leave “identities” at the door and just be students. 

A significant improvement over the 2001 conference (which was monumental), the conference was well organized and the events and workshops well attended, despite the seeming lack of support from most administrative entities. Perhaps most striking was the amazing cast of performers, scholars and authors who supported the conference, not only as “special” guests, but as art-professionals who valued participation in events beyond our specific contributions. It’s quite monumental to have Doria Roberts, Nalo Hopkinson, Lance McCready, Ingrid Rivera and Deep Dickollective (all of whom are artists, authors and scholars) on a college campus in the United States at one time. As a lecturer and performer who has performed and lectured to students at Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Stanford, UC Berkeley, NYU, Columbia and numerous other universities, the warmth and dedication of Oberlin students at the intersection of blackness and sexuality is something to be proud of. My hope is that the conference continues to get not only the financial support to continue its work, but also the moral support from an administration who values the historic impress of such an event.  

As a former director of English at the Oakland School for the Arts, and someone who continues to educate and mentor youth nationally, I’ve often commented that Oberlin College is among the more amazing environments for students looking for an engaging, rigorous, diverse and supportive environment (especially for young artists and activists). Understand that this sentiment is largely due to my exposure to Oberlin through the conferences in both 2001 and recently. My hope is that you take notice of the students involved with the conference that you’ve nurtured and develop means for them to continue the conference without the kind of skepticism and lack of good faith that I sense was a challenge for organizers.  

Thanks in advance for your time and attention. 

–Tim’m T. West
Author, Scholar, Emcee, Poet


To the Editors:

While reading the article, “Neo-conservative lectures” in last weeks’ issue of the review, I noticed a tyopgraphical error so egregious and so obvious that I can only assume it is part of some far reaching conservative conspiracy involving both the Oberlin Review and the newly formed (though previously undisgraced) College Republicans. I refer of course to the the second sentance, first paragraph which states (quoting Lawrence Kaplan), “Not even Jews for Jesus or the Socialist Worker’s (sic!) Party at Brigham Young could outdo a Republican group at Oberlin.” Now, a simple glance at http://www (the journal of the aforementioned party) could confirm the obvious truth: that there is no apostrophe in the name of the party, and that, even if there were one, it would certainly go at the /end /of the word (i.e. Socialist Workers’) since the party is certainly made up of more than one socialist worker and, were they inclined to show they are somehow (albeit abstractly) in possession of their party, it would (obviosly) be a communal posession. Now, many might see this as a simple mistake, a misplaced key stroke at three in the morning the night before publication (a mistake that could have been avoided with the assistance of the crackerjack copy editors of The Grape, Joe Kimmel and Walker Evans), but, when viewed in the context of the rapidly growing conservative movement on campus, it seems that it is more likely a dastardly attempt to plant misconceptions about the militant left in the collective subconsiousness of the readers of the Review. However, just as the Socialist Workers Party heroically carried the mantle of Trotskyism through the turmoil of the mid to late twentieth century, so shall it survive this underhanded attack and emerge with a redoubled commitment to defending the rights of America’s Workers.

–David J. Crean
Double Deg’ree junior


To the Editors:

Last Friday as I went to a lecture in the Science Center, I was puzzled to see flyers that contained statements posted by Students for Administrative Reform (SAR) that did not represent either my own experience or the product of the strategic planning process that has recently been endorsed by the General Faculty. The flyer stated that President Dye wrote the plan. In fact, the plan is the result of the work of hundreds of people (faculty, staff, students and trustees) who have spent hundreds, more likely thousands, of hours since January 2004 in meetings and in forums that were devoted entirely to talking about, thinking about and revising multiple drafts of the Strategic Plan. I have participated in nearly every one of those gatherings and I know that the voices of those constituencies are clearly reflected in the final draft of the plan.

It may be that some do not like the proposed plan; however, it should be known that the plan has been a very thoroughly collaborative work, drawing on the ideas of the entire Oberlin College community. Throughout the process and now as we begin the implementation phase of the plan, President Dye, Provost Koppes and Vice President for Finance Ron Watts have been extraordinarily accessible to students and have met in a number of open forums organized by Student Senate since early February to talk about the plan as well as any other issues students wanted to bring to the table.

I am pleased to have been able to talk this week with two of the SAR representatives about the flyer in question and some of the issues raised in last week’s Review. From my perspective, that kind of exchange, an open conversation, is productive and helpful and can lead us to a better understanding and a quality of communication that we seek to enhance and practice.

–Linda Gates
Acting Dean of Students


To the Editors:

Students for Administrative Reform would like to apologize for the use of last week’s Review editorial in our April 26 flyers. We understand fully that the Review does not take a stance on this issue. Nor would we expect them to. We only used the editorial because we felt it eloquently expressed some ideas with which our organization agrees. We did not intend for it to seem as if the Review were trying to influence student opinion on the matter by leaving out the last sentence of the article, which was addressed to the administration. That decision was not intended to create the impression that the editorial board agreed with our chosen methods in trying to encourage administrative reform, only to suggest our agreement with their expression of the belief that there ought to be some kind of change. In retrospect, it may have given the wrong impression to the Oberlin community, and for our irresponsibility in not anticipating that, we are sincerely sorry.

–Cecilia Hayford
College junior
–Peter Collopy
College sophomore
Students for Administrative Reform


To the Editors:

I am writing in response to Karles Saucedo-McQuade’s letter to the April 22 Review on the OC Republicans. Mr. Saucedo-McQuade writes that Republicans are a “marginalized group” on the Oberlin campus, and to some extent I agree. I don’t doubt that there are times when Republican students have been insulted or excluded because of their beliefs and I find this wholly inappropriate and unfortunate.

However, I feel that the urgency of Mr. Saucedo-McQuade’s concern is misplaced. To many American liberals (including Oberlin liberals), there seems to be a great concern for tolerance of all political views, something which is overwhelmingly a good thing. However, in some cases, this concern for tolerance veers into a dangerously passive moral relativism, in which one cannot roundly condemn an ethically repugnant position without risking being thought of as intolerant.

Of course, one can strongly disagree with someone while still respecting him or her as a person. But it seems to me that there are certain positions one can only hold if one is viciously prejudiced. An example is the opposition to gay marriage. There are few if any logically sound secular arguments against gay marriage that don’t smack of intense bigotry. Mr. Saucedo-McQuade notes that he can talk to an OC Republican if he wants to “truly understand the horrors of gay marriage,” but to engage in civil discourse with someone who espouses such bigotry serves to legitimize an execrable position.

Interestingly enough, I strongly suspect that many of those who espouse tolerance of all viewpoints would, in actuality, happily marginalize certain ones. Imagine if there were to be formed, say, a student group dedicated to reinstating segregation or the forced sterilization of the mentally disabled. Members of such a group would be made pariahs! Do I think that this is inappropriate? Far from it; cruel and blatant enough bigotry must be unequivocally condemned, or else it is much easier for it to spread.

Of course, I don’t mean to say that the OC Republicans are equivalent to the hypothetical groups I earlier mentioned. But it seems as if the real difference, in the minds of many of those who call for broad-spectrum political tolerance, is that segregation and sterilization of the mentally handicapped are not issues that are today debated in the mainstream, while gay marriage and the indefinite imprisonment without charge of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay are.

While this is an interesting historical situation, it is logically fallacious to suggest that whether an issue is currently controversial determines its ethical validity or the character of those who espouse it.

I welcome rational, kind conservative students who wish to discuss their views with the student body. I do not welcome, however, cruelty or bigotry, and neither, I think, should the rest of the campus.

–Christopher Boyd
College sophomore


To the Editors:

In an article entitled “Search for deans grows complicated,” (22 April 2005) by Douglass Dowty, Josh Keating and Milena Evtimova, readers were informed that: “Professor Ramon Gutierrez left campus indignant that two faculty liaison administrators may be cut from the Dean of the College’s office or shared with the Office of the Provost.” Yet how are readers to judge his state of mind, as the authors presented no actual evidence of it one way or another? Gutierrez himself “could not be reached for comment,” and no faculty member (or anyone else) cited in the piece so described him.

The authors state vaguely that Gutierrez “was also said to have expressed similar concerns at the history department dinner given in his honor.” If so, might it not have been a good idea actually to ask someone from the history department who was there?

I must wonder whether the article sought to report further complication in the search, or create it.

–Leonard V. Smith
Frederick B. Artz, Professor of History


To the Editors:

This is in response to the letter from President Dye regarding this year’s scholarship, fellowship and award recipients. At the outset, I wish to clarify that I believe the College should value the achievements of these students. I sincerely respect and admire their accomplishments and believe that their successes should be publicly recognized and applauded. My concern is not about the contents of the letter, but about its implications — in my opinion, the letter typifies those achievements that the College chooses to highlight and those it often chooses to overlook or ignore.

A large number of Oberlin students are highly involved in social justice programming and activism on this campus, functioning on a professional level and achieving repeated successes in organizing events and activities that are on par with those that are organized by activists and scholars at larger, more professional institutions. The activism that occurs on this campus is at the cutting edge of academic scholarship and of other professional endeavors. It is just as significant and relevant in the larger societal or global context as any other form of academic accomplishment and therefore just as legitimate a form of educational and professional development. Yet, in my experience, the College has chosen to give only tacit or token recognition to social activism work (as may be indicated by the somewhat vulnerable past and present position of departments such as the Multicultural Resource Center, the Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People or the Comparative American Studies program), but proactively encourages and recognizes primarily traditional forms of academic ventures and accomplishments. Given its stated commitment to social justice, the highly limited public recognition and support from the College for the social activism work that students undertake is surprising, and often frustrating.

This situation is particularly disconcerting in light of the newly adopted Strategic Plan. It appears that the College is interested in creating a “new” image by focusing primarily on traditional indicators of academic excellence. While the objective of academic excellence is admirable, what is problematic is that this image is being created at the cost of “traditional Oberlin values,” namely the institution’s “history” of commitment to social justice. It has been suggested that since the College is widely recognized as an institution committed to social justice, energy must be focused on building its reputation in other areas. This strategy has the potential of further marginalizing the very students upon whose tireless work and commitment Oberlin has perpetuated its reputation as a school committed to social justice and human rights issues.

The College often reiterates its commitment to social justice by highlighting its progressive/activist history as the first school to admit African Americans and women. However, past legacies do not necessarily translate into present realities. The College’s apparent ambivalence to social justice activism on this campus leads me to believe that the College is simply paying lip service to a principle that it no longer believes is relevant or valuable. This ambivalence, combined with the College’s stated intention to “strengthen Oberlin’s appeal,” is reflective of the College’s apparent fear that its “activist image” may be hurting Oberlin’s appeal to more “mainstream students” who are worthy of an Oberlin education.

In my opinion, if the lack of institutional support, recognition and respect for social justice work continues, Oberlin will eventually lose its dedicated and driven student activists. After all, history and reputation can only go so far. By merely touting or glorifying its progressive past and by tokenizing the social justice work of student activists the College is doing a disservice to those students who choose to come to Oberlin because of its reputation, only to find that its history/reputation has no institutional significance in the present.

Having stated its commitment to social justice in the new plan, the College must implement this commitment by being more proactive, deliberate and public in supporting and recognizing the work that student activists on this campus are engaged in, and by valuing social justice activism to the same extent as more traditional forms of scholarly and professional endeavors.

–Rashné Limki
College senior


To the Editors:

I wanted to correct a factual error made in a letter I wrote in the Review last week on behalf of Students for a Free Palestine. Israel is not, in fact, the fourth largest military in the world. My sincere apologies for this error. There are many ways of measuring military power. Israel actually has the sixth highest military spending in relation to its GDP (according to http://www.aneki.com/military.html). Again, sorry for the mistake.

–Rachel Marcus
College junior
 
 

   


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