Students relieved

From the Hampshire College daily announcements, February 2, 2011 

toilet found! thanks everyone.
thank you for all email responses, mod 106 has found our toilet! now that we have it back, we look forward to binge eating and pooping a whole whole lot :) 
More Info: https://intranet.hampshire.edu/viewDetails.php?messageNumber=35963

Risqué literature: driving the point home

I recently commented on the history blog about the travails of "The Mount," the estate dedicated to the commemoration of Edith Wharton's home, life, and works.  There, I cited a rather disingenuous interview given by current Executive Director Susan Wissler concerning the organization's disastrous earlier financial and management decisions. However, she also spoke about the organization's future.

Unfortunately, what caught my eye was this equally disastrous typo by the interviewer.  The conversation turned to new cultural programs:

[SW] Last summer we brought a Wharton play back to the drawing room with Xingu It was adapted from a short story of Wharton's by Dennis Krausnick (The husband of Shakespeare & Company founder, Tina Packer). This summer we will also present one of Dennis's adaptations Summer. She called it her "Hot Ethan." It is a story of a young woman's sexual awakening and takes place in the Berkshires.

CG [=interviewer] It sounds steamy.

SW It has a few steamy passages. It is too risqué to be read in school which is why students ream Ethan Frome. It entails such hot issues as teenage pregnancy and abortion. [emphasis added]

CG That sounds like a lively production . . .

1) Ouch.

2) And:  Indeed—though not too risqué for Amherst, I'd wager.

Crisis and Confusion

student in class:

"He was having a mid-life crisis but didn't know what to do"

Hard to argue with that. I mean, otherwise it wouldn't be much of a crisis, would it?

Students & Administration Meet

For the full video experience:


http://www.archive.org/details/HampshireCollegeEmergencyOpenForumOnAshadmissionMovement


Audio of conversation with Admissions interns there, too.

Students try to track down administrators

Students try to crash an administration meeting about changes to buildings and programs—but can't find it.

Here, they wait patiently in Franklin Patterson Hall in the early afternoon.




Eventually,they went to the main administration building and secured a promise of a public meeting at 4:00 p.m. Video coverage of that in a subsequent post.

Communist anti-capitalism

from a student paper:

"The Soviets . . . tried to build authoritarian rule based on the principle that they were protecting these post war countries from the imminent threat of capitalism. Their purge trials would weed out the traders and execute them."

Well, that's one way to solve an economic problem, I guess.

Day 2: Hampshire College STOP THE PLAN, MAN!

Day 2 of the protest:




The (presumed) final action will take place at noon today.

Hampshire College STOP THE PLAN, MAN! protest

Here is day 1 of the protest:

Radical Student Movement

from an announcement of a massive student-faculty protest against proposed changes to the use and configuration of a campus building.

Naturally, there is the typical organizing work to do: draft petitions, draw up demands, form committees—in that order. Hmmm. It would seem a lot more sensible to figure out what your demands are before you draft the petitions (hasn't always happened that way around here, believe it or not), but that may just be my atavistic logocentric, linear thinking at work. Or maybe those items were listed in random rather than chronological order.

Anyway: After that, there's . . . dancing:

"~organizing a samba parade, starting on the library lawn and ending at ASH at 4
pm on Tuesday, to raise awareness, share information, and distribute petitions"

Grow Up!

"the problem is, we have to get the students to show faculty how to behave like adults"

colleagues, in the course of an informal conversation on how to increase civility and intellectual openness on campus

Hard to Swallow

student complaining that French post-structuralist theory is dense and unpalatable:

"it's like mayonnaise on mayonnaise"

Jack Bauer Interrogates Santa Claus

Hat tip: librarymistress

Cover Up the Naked Truth

From a student essay:

"In the novel The Return of Martin Guerre, Bertrande de Rols marries Martin Guerre. During the initial years of their marriage, the couple's union has been 'bewitched,' and therefore, they are unable to bare children."

Why Won't Jesus Give Us a Sign?

From a student paper:

". . . Europeans made careful revisions of their culture. One example was the de-Judeaizing of the Christianity and bible. Jesus was portrayed not as semiotic, but as Aryan."

Postcards From the Edge: Hampshire Secrets Revealed

Hampedia recently added an entry for the "Postcard Project," an outcome of an experiential education course intended to create an art installation in which community members communicate their feelings about the college on anonymous postcards:

Decorate the reverse side of this postcard and share a secret, revelation, or statement about your experience of and feelings about HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE. It's anonymous, so anything goes!

There's some interesting and just plain strange stuff there. And to my even greater surprise, I showed up in one of the cards. Go figure. Never a dull moment here.

The Process (words, just words?)

Snapshots from a faculty discussion:

First faculty member: I'd just like to harp on that [sic] for a bit.
. . . .
Moderator (a short time later): I'd like to call your attention to the time. It's getting late, and we ask that you keep your comments brief, so that everyone has a chance to speak and we can get through our business.

Second faculty member: Okay, I have three questions.

Water Rights

One student to another, during class:

What are you, a llama? You just sprayed water on me!

"Old Europe"?

from a student paper:

"Anti-Judaism, which reached its height in Middle-Aged European countries, was firmly based in religious belief."

Eye-Sore

"We're still tied up in the word and the number and that old hierarchy. The image was there before the word, and we are really going fuddy-duddy."

—faculty member, in discussion of curriculum and standards, criticizing the emphasis on improving student writing, analytical reasoning, and quantitative skills

The Write Stuff

"I'm curious as to why we think all students need to write well."

—faculty member in discussion about requirements and standards