Similarly to the view expressed by others, the school is simply choking on its own propaganda.

If the college can afford to provide free sandwiches for lunch at the Convo (we used to gorge on cookies that went untouched at all the 4:15s in South Lounge), then I’ll never believe it is more important to give my money to Grinnell than just about anywhere else.

For a place so self-proud about social justice, the actions on campus are a lens into a disturbing hypocrisy of privilege, classism, and arrogance — “do as we say, not as we do”.

Since the students turn over every four years, it appears those in charge own the responsibility for change.

As long as the college can afford to provide free sandwiches for lunch at the Convo (so there still must be cookies at all the 4:15s in South Lounge?), then I’ll never believe it is more important to give my money to Grinnell than just about any other deserving charity anywhere else.

Really? Come on, for a place so self-proud about social justice, the actions on campus are a lens into a hypocrisy of privilege, classism, and arrogance — “do as we say, not as we do”.

Your columns have been interesting, but you seem to wrapped up in the admins numbers.

P.S. — I was in school with Penny Sebring and have always admired her work. She’s worth your time sandwich or not.

Many (but to be fair not all) from my era have the view that the Grinnell of today has over-indulged in interesting sidelights that detract from its outstanding academics. I point to the prison teaching, others scoff at your prize. Inspiring as these might be, their loss would not undermine the core functionality of the EDUCATIONAL mission of Grinnell. Yet these are the things we hear about.

Tell me about Rhoads Scholars or Watsons, about faculty publication and teaching innovation, and other things that relate to the academic strength and it is easier to think about donating to provide access to that.

Before I donate, show me that my contribution won’t just go to fund consultancy firms to micromanage my education. Show me it won’t let Bob’s close. Show me it won’t allow dedicated and competent staff members to be unceremoniously fired. Show me that Grinnell’s commitment to diversity is not just lip service. Show me that need-blind admission is a higher priority than building the biggest swimming pool in the state of Iowa. Show me that the health center and mental health services can actually serve students (or even just show me that the only on-campus health center can maybe not close on Saturday and Sunday.) Show me that Grinnell cares about the wellbeing of its students beyond merely how they might be liabilities.Show me that Grinnell as an institution gives more of a fuck about students than it seems to right now.

Maybe we should have a little gun control but not like, *too* much
Maybe crazy people and illegal immigrants shouldn’t get guns
Maybe some kinds of guns shouldn’t be allowed
Maybe guns fuel violent crime, but maybe they don’t

And finally, my favorite:
The U.S. government has historically oppressed racial and ethnic minorities, so everybody in the United States should have guns!

You guys…

I believe that assistive technology is something you don’t understand until you see the students who need it use it. You’ll see how it changes their classroom experiences and makes their lives more manageable. Without someone to head assistive technology on this campus, this viewpoint is missing. There simply must be someone to assist these students on campus, and to think otherwise is a huge oversight.

It infuriates me that the needs of students were not considered when these administrative decisions were made in ITS, and I am extremely concerned for what this change means for the students on campus with disabilities and for our campus as a whole.

vs.

Three people have been let go by ITS, but three leadership positions have opened up.

“We’re adding three new roles, which are Relationship Manager, Project Office Manager and Operation Manager,” Kuntz said.

Are these statements not in conflict?
You’re going to have less hierarchical teams that are more self-directed, and so the positions that you’ve opened up will be filled by… new managerial staff.

Firing can be plenty justifiable, but the most senior ITS staff have historically been lacking knowledge of IT industry best practices and current technology. They’re out of touch, and they’re not skilled managers to begin with. The three people that were released were people who were in the weeds. The problems start at the top. I fail to see how this realignment is consistent with what Kuntz initially promised, and with the original point of the IT strategic planning process that happened two years ago.

Karen is one of the best things that has ever happened to ITS and the TC Corps. She was removed from her position as head of TC Corps at the beginning of the year, and replaced by someone who was willfully ignorant about the details of his new position. I can not blame him for simply being new to the job, and I am sure he is doing the best that he can, but the simple truth is that on Karen’s worst day, she still shined. It was foolish to replace her. Many students were devastated by the news earlier this year that she had been reassigned, and for her now to have been let go in such a manner is nothing less than despicable.

Not only am I furious about the way in which the college has handled Karen’s “release,” but I am disgusted by the callousness shown in reassigning Assistive Tech to Academic Support, who I doubt have any experience in this area and enough to do already.

Great work, Grinnell, in firing (and treating like a criminal) a woman who dedicated years of her life to ITS, overlooked the TCs, Assistive Technology and a group for Women in Technology, always with a smile on her face. If this is how you treat your best employees, I wonder how you plan to get money from those of us who love them.

My class has occasionally donated above 50%; although it has not been as high lately. I have donated consistently for the 30+ years since I finished grad school, but not so much lately.

Perhaps it is schtick like this column trying to guilt giving or extortion-tactics related to the future of need-blind. I don’t know. It seems the college just expects I should blindly donate and then donate some more.

Grinnell has lost its way. Too much money has made it lethargic and entitled. Pump up the educational side of things and maybe the interest would return.

1. Just what about this approach so far really lines up with the cluster of public health policies known as ‘harm reduction’? From what I understand, based on conversations I’ve had with alums who are currently getting or have gotten a Master’s in Public Health (much less prestigious than Kington’s Phd, I know), harm reduction is about publicly tolerating risky behaviors and providing support for the consequences of those behaviors. It is designed to prevent stigmatizing and escalating those behaviors by driving them underground. In a college campus, this means something akin to what Grinnell (in a total relic of the sixties shift away from the in loco parentis model of college) has called ‘self-gov’. If students drink on campus, publicly, this means they are not drinking in a sometimes hostile environment (the town of Grinnell, with its underfunded police force held to the political demands of its citizens) or in a dangerous one (a dorm room, with a vigilant RA with almost godlike power, like at many state schools). From a harm reduction standpoint, a computer education class for incoming students, a heavy fine for 10/10 organizers, a ban on 100 days, and the removal of alcohol from Relays don’t solve the problem of alcohol on campus; they simply drive it into other places. These actions remove community responsibility for drinking too much and move it to the favorite neoliberal “individual”. Jacobsen seems to have a handle on this concept in a way that Kington does not: “[Jacobsen] added that being too heavy-handed can push alcohol use underground, where it is less safe and students are less willing to call for help.”

2. From a harm reduction standpoint, then, linking alcohol use to “sexual misconduct” probably reflects Puritanism rather than the intervention and results model of public health. Publicizing the existence of a rape culture on campus, a culture that almost certainly exists in all if not nearly all colleges in the United States, has much more to do with claims of “sexual misconduct” than the idea that more people are drinking irresponsibly and thus more people (women) are being sexually assaulted. If more women are being sexually assaulted, then the college should deal with sexual assault as a public health issue, and use relevant public health/behavioral interventions to help combat the problem. If things don’t change, they should try something new. Trying to link public drinking with “sexual misconduct” (just can’t get over how judgmental and inapt that phrase is) is a way to drive the problem of sexual assault back into dorm rooms. Sexual assault won’t stop until survivors aren’t shamed and their input into an arbitration process between survivors and rapists is taken seriously.

Ultimately, this article, like most of the conversations around alcohol at the campus, suggests there is some ‘culture’ of dangerous drinking that we must all know about which concerned adults are now working to change. Drinking is a behavior, not a culture. Acceptance of drinking, in my anecdotal experience, varied widely across campus, and was enforced with multiple cultures. Rather than linking drinking with sexual assault all together, we need to take a serious look at the places where sexual assaults happen and people who commit sexual assaults. Are they mostly athletes? Are other drugs present in the system of people who are sexually assaulted? Do the assaults occur more often in certain dorm clusters? Do the assaults occur more or less often at events like 10/10 and Titular Head? These are harm reduction questions.

Sorry, but I don’t really see a problem that’s tangibly identified here. Let’s be honest: what on earth does a lack of transparency actually mean? Anyone care to articulate? Scare tactics: using important-sounding words to mask the situation.

“Because when things don’t affect people, they don’t care” – that’s a quote from this very article. Maybe it’s true, and if it is, then it just supports the whole idea that we’re digging for worms just for the sake of creating a stir.

As for communication? Again, no specifics. What, precisely, isn’t being communicated to students? Mum on that point. Or maybe we should set up a task force like they did in East Germany — remember the Stasi, anyone? — to inform everyone of everything that’s going on?

That said, you have a point — fundraising is not only important, it’s a necessity.

Still, instead of simply imploring its graduates to donate for the sake of donating, why don’t you explore the far more interesting question: why Grinnell’s fundraising is paltry in comparison to ‘peer schools’.