[1402] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Walkout & 14,000 signatures
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Shulman)
Wed Mar 12 11:51:43 2003
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 11:30:12 -0500
From: Peter Shulman <skip@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.2.20030312102059.01a075e8@hesiod>
hi kelly,
good questions all around. first off as you pointed out, the NYT ad is
seperate from the student organized walk-out, and i suspect only a small
number of the 14,000 scholarly signatories are planning on not holding
classes as part of a war protest.
as for faculty and the walk-out, this is an issue that is being addressed
by the Chancellor's Committee on Community which is crafting MIT's
institutional responses and responsibilities should the US begin war with
Iraq. The committee's web-site is available at
http://web.mit.edu/community/, though not much is posted yet (stay tuned).
as far as I understand it, and again, as you mentioned, if faculty choose
not to hold classes as part of a protest, they are required to reschedule
(both for students who choose to walk out and students who do not).
although i don't believe this precise scenario has been discussed by the
committee, i'd imagine that if a student could not make the scheduled
make-up time, the onus is on the professor to find a time to meet with that
student, individually if necessary. i will check on this question with the
committee (which is reachable at <community-questions@mit.edu> -- on the
other end of this list are Francine Crystal and Kirk Kolenbrander, two
administrators who are members of the committee).
as for the purpose of a walk-out, that is a political statement whose
interpretations and significance clearly vary. it is up to the individual
to identify how best (within the law and the regulations of this campus) to
express political sentiment.
oh, and I recall a calculation several years ago that put the 50 minutes of
a lecture at about $100. i don't know how well that tracks with tuition
increases, though....
--**peter
At 10:28 AM -0500 3/12/03, Kelly N. Zimmerman wrote:
>The Tech mentioned this and the walkout thing yesterday--- I'm confused,
>though--
>
>What happens if professors walk out of class when they have students that
>won't otherwise walk out? The article mentioned that classes will be
>rescheduled-- what if those students can't make the rescheduled classes?
>Will they be penalized?
>
>Also, I thought the point of a walkout was "I believe in this, so I'm
>sacrificing something important, knowing that I might have to face
>consequences, but that's ok because I really believe in this." If the
>professors are being urged to not penalize students that walk out, then it
>becomes "I believe in this, but I'm not willing to sacrifice anything, but
>I still really belive in this." Maybe I missed the point of a walkout...
>
>And, what's with the disrupting classes for the walkout? Do students who
>don't believe in the walkout (which is not necessarily because they don't
>believe that this war is wrong) have to be penalized by way of disruption
>of a several hundred dollar class (I remember Prof. Sadoway calculated how
>much each class is worth...)?
>
>Kelly ;)
>
>
>At 08:11 AM 3/12/2003 -0500, Peter Shulman wrote:
>>This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education
>>(http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from:
>>
>> skip@mit.edu
>>
>>The following message was enclosed:
>> news from the home front.
>>
>> --**peter
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>
>>This article is available online at this address:
>>
>>http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/03/2003031202n.htm
>>
>> - The text of the article is below -
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>
>>Finding it hard to keep up with all that's happening in academe?
>>The Chronicle's e-mailed Daily Report keeps you up-to-date in a
>>matter of minutes by quickly summarizing current events in higher
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>>_________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>> Wednesday, March 12, 2003
>>
>>
>>
>> 14,000 Academics and Writers Sign Statement Opposing
>> Threatened U.S. Invasion of Iraq
>>
>> By ROBIN WILSON
>>
>>
>>
>> Fourteen thousand intellectuals -- most of them academics --
>> have signed a statement that appeared as an advertisement in
>> The New York Times on Tuesday condemning a possible U.S. war
>> with Iraq.
>>
>> The ad says: "On the eve of battle, 14,000 U.S. writers,
>> academics and other intellectuals say NO TO WAR." It calls
>> waging war at this time "morally unacceptable," and says: "No
>> compelling evidence has been offered of an imminent threat to
>> our security that would justify the use of military force."
>>
>> Joshua Cohen, chairman of the political-science department at
>> the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, coordinated the ad
>> campaign and collected the signatures via a Web site.
>>
>> Mr. Cohen, who is co-editor of Boston Review, a political and
>> literary magazine, said that 90 to 95 percent of those who
>> signed the document are professors. They include Eric Chivian,
>> an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard
>> University who won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, Edward W. Said,
>> a university professor at Columbia University, and Elaine
>> Scarry, a professor of English at Harvard. Writers, medical
>> doctors, pastors, and peace activists also signed, including
>> the writers Nora Ephron and Susanna Kaysen and the activist
>> Gloria Steinem.
>>
>> Although the advertisement does not list all 14,000 names,
>> they are available online at the magazine's Web site.
>>
>> Mr. Cohen said professors had donated the $50,000 it cost to
>> place the ad. He decided to start an online petition last
>> month when a foreign academic e-mailed him about the possible
>> war and asked: "Where are the American intellectuals on this?"
>> Said Mr. Cohen: "I knew there were a lot of people opposed to
>> the war and doing stuff about it. But there wasn't a
>> sufficiently strong presence [among intellectuals] on the
>> issue."
>>
>>
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>
>>You may visit The Chronicle as follows:
>>
>> http://chronicle.com
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>Copyright 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
>>
>>
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Study of Science and Technology
skip@mit.edu
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