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EDITOR'S NOTE: In her April 3 column for the Minneapolis
Star Tribune, Katherine Kersten criticized student activists
at Macalester and other colleges who are advocating a ban
on Coca-Cola products because of Coke's alleged labor practices
in Colombia. The newspaper published the following response
from President Rosenberg on April 5.
by Brian Rosenberg
College presidents are adept at what Muhammad Ali termed
the "rope-a-dope" maneuver: Allow your opponent
to batter you relentlessly and hope he wears himself out.
While painful, this strategy is often more effective than
responding to each of the jabs and uppercuts directed at us.
That said, I do feel the need to respond to Katherine Kersten's
April 3 column on the Coca-Cola ferment at Macalester. My
aim is not to weigh in on the merits of Coke's corporate practices
or the proposed suspension of Coke sales on campus, but to
offer a different perspective from Kersten's on the nature
of our students and the virtues of debate on a college campus.
Two points are worth emphasizing:
- Perspectives on issues of this kind at Macalester are
diverse and varied, and this is a good thing. In Kersten's
own column, a Macalester faculty member is quoted as opposing
a ban on Coke. In the April 2 Star Tribune, a letter
from a young alumnus also argues against such a ban. A civil
and thoughtful exchange of views on complex issues is precisely
what we want on college campuses because it is precisely
the intellectual environment in which students learn best.
That members of the Macalester community engage in spirited
debate on such topics is a sign that we are doing our job.
- Kersten suggests that "activist" students are
chiefly interested in "striking self-righteous poses,
parading in front of cameras and playing the rebel."
Now, I am about the last person who might be expected to
champion student activists, given that--as the embodiment
of "authority" at Macalester--I am often the target
of their activism. But champion them I will. It is unfair
to those students to characterize their activities as thoughtless
or self-serving. They are indeed young, they are indeed
passionate, and they may on occasion be wrong (unlike us
older folks who are, of course, more or less always right).
One thing they are not, however, is insincere.
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They are indeed young, they are indeed
passionate, and they may on occasion be wrong (unlike
us older folks who are, of course, more or less always
right). One thing they are not, however, is insincere.
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I know many of the activist students at Macalester. When
they're not lobbying for particular causes they are participating
in hurricane relief trips to the Gulf Coast, doing volunteer
work with local community organizations, studying history,
philosophy and political science, and otherwise taking seriously
Macalester's stated belief in the importance of service and
in education as enhancing the public good. I'd rather have
students who care about citizenship, even ones with whom I
sometimes disagree, than students more indifferent or narrowly
self-interested.
It is fair enough to contend that they are incompletely
informed or even wrong, but not that they are motivated by
anything other than a desire to serve the communities whose
leaders they will, one day, become.
Brian Rosenberg, the president of Macalester,
writes a regular column for Macalester Today. He can
be reached at rosenbergb@macalester.edu.
(c)2006 Star Tribune
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