[901] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Marilee Jones (Dean of Admissions) on the New Improved MIT
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul Covell)
Thu Oct 4 16:51:07 2001
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-ID: <20011004114339.56985c44.pac@alum.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 11:43:39 -0700
Reply-To: "Documentation at http://web.mit.edu/beland/talk/talk.html"
<MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU>, Paul Covell <pac@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
From: Paul Covell <pac@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.30L.0110030321150.12617-100000@buzzword-bingo.mit.edu>
> Remember that most adults in their lives cave in to them easily,
> so they will push back hard. Stand firm through all of their
> excuses and whining. Eventually they will realize that you mean
> business and they'll comply because Millennials generally want to
> obey the rules.
You're taking this out of context. Do you really believe she should advocate
that professors should cave in when presented with a plagiarized or unreferenced
report?
Do you think it is unreasonable to propose to the faculty that their purpose
in education is to guide students? To provide them with more than a recitation
out of a book?
Would you be upset if your professors took an interest in your life to the
point where you could respect their opinion about what to do in certain
situations? Are there any adults you respect or trust?
I would argue that if you want a place where people interact with you only
to give you the specific information you request and nothing more, you can
have it: in the United States, it's called the adult world. You can go there,
and nobody will give a damn what you do with your living situation or your
eating habits or the rest of your life. Your interactions will be your own,
your choices will be your own, your life will be your own.
But you won't get a University style education from it. Part of the point is
that the people who have been hired to act as administrators and professors
at a University, prestigious or not, are experienced and smart. You may disagree
with them, but if you really advocate not having them, you maybe don't need
or want a University.
That being said, I do believe that student representation in the higher level
decision making bodies of MIT needs to be greatly increased. It needs to be
more than a token representation. They need to do more than feel like they're
being guided through a sea of decisions -- they need to help guide the decisions.
Crusty old alum, signing off.
-Paul
