[889] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Marilee Jones
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Miriam Lara Boon)
Thu Oct 4 14:54:20 2001
Message-ID: <200110031924.PAA14578@l-slide.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 15:24:14 -0400
Reply-To: "Documentation at http://web.mit.edu/beland/talk/talk.html"
<MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU>, Miriam Lara Boon <milara@MIT.EDU>
From: Miriam Lara Boon <milara@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
Hi!
So I've been doing something that I encourage all of you to do.
This 'article' of Marilee's was in the Faculty newsletter, which means it was
addressed at the faculty. The Faculty may be clueless, but they're just
as smart if not more intelligent than the student body. So I started to wonder
if they thought this was as big a load of crap as we do.
What I've been doing exactly is, armed with a copy of Marilee Jones' words,
I've spoken with my professors after class. I still have to corner
two of them, but the first two said the following:
Prof 1:
-it's not particularly intelligent 'armchair psychology'
-I'm not taking it seriously
Prof 2:
-I skimmed it but when I realized that it was not particularly intelligent,
didn't bother reading it properly or skimming the rest of it.
-I haven't heard any professors talk about it, let alone condemn it, which is
in some ways more condemning than verbal condemnation---they're ignoring it
as inconsequential
I think we'll find that most profs recognize it for the silly armchair
psychology pseudo science it is, so we probably needn't worry about the
professors falling for it.
However, what we do need to worry about is that someone this stupid is in
charge of admissions.
(1) She doesn't seem to realize that even if this is true in general about
the current generation, that means that she should be looking for those
gems who AREN'T like that.
(2) She's stupid enough to think that this article of hers would actually
be believed by the faculty.
I am of the rather strong opinion that THIS is the point that we need to take
action on. Yes, we need to talk to our profs and publish the original text
and rebuttals in the Tech as damage control. But for the future...
**we need to get Marilee Jones fired and replaced with someone more
intelligent and appropriate to the job, someone who understands the
undergraduate population as well as what the faculty wants in its students,
rather than what she thinks would make her job easier/ would make things
run more smoothly.
Followers like she has described do not make great innovative thinkers.
Independent people do.
I'm committed to doing this if people can suggest a reasonable game plan to
talk about getting her replaced, and if I feel enough students are supportive
of the assertion that it is time to replace her.
-Miriam
