Collect student sentiments

Dear Editor:


There has been a highly charged response by students to The Mac Weekly concerning the recommendations in the Academic Structure and Quality Report. This concern reflects the pertinence of these issues to student life. Clearly then, there is a strong need for student opinions to influence the interpretations and actions regarding this report.

Currently, Macalester has no adequate infrastructure to handle student input. Students are encouraged to get involved, yet there has been no effective means for involvement. MCSG recently held a forum about the criteria the Educational Policy and Governance Committee (EPAG) will use to make curriculum decisions. Although the forum was designed to gather student input, it failed in this goal. Suggestions and criticisms were met with a biased, defensive response from the committee. While it is necessary for representatives to evaluate and consolidate student ideas, the main objective should always be to transmit them. In order to effectively voice the opinions of the student body, representatives must be actively receptive to the core sentiments around campus. This requires having forums where input is collected, not critiqued.

To ensure student representation, we must not only encourage informed involvement, but also make this possible. Thus, our charge to student representatives is: continue holding forums, conducting campus-wide surveys, and acquiring a sense of student body opinions. Gather student input, but then act on it. Make your ideas secondary to general consensus, not vice-versa.


Aaron Malone '04

Annie Taff '04


Post-QU reflection: how to improve the dance

Dear Editor:


No doubt by now you Macalester students will have recovered from the QU dance and are ready to read the post-QU opinion articles evaluating the dance. Along with such an article, you will likely read about the problems that have occurred in the past (be them rumored or true), the reasons for the dance (to have an open and safe space for GLBT students), other similar dances that go off with fewer non-friends of the GLBT community, the cancellation last fall, etc. Instead of re-hashing what has been said before, I am instead offering up a way to change what should be changed.

The biggest obstacle to changing how people perceive and respond to the QU dance is that it its status as an institution. Similar to the notoriety that Spingfest gains through stories told to first-years, which are embellished more and more every semester, the QU dance has an image that gets updated with all the latest rumors and happenings. This is not good for the GLBT community at Macalester and the spirit of openness that the dance is intended to promote. It does not foster a sense of community but instead offers an opportunity to get righteously trashed, be idiots together, and offend those who throw the dance. That's just not cool.

So how does it get changed and fixed? Stop throwing it. I'm serious. Not just for one semester, or a year, or even two years, stop throwing the QU dance for four years. After a couple years, the stories that are passed down may become more extravagant, but more likely, the dance will be unknown to all those new students entering.

However, those who would liked to celebrate their sexuality (who are not yet out) no longer have the safe and open venue. The QU should still host a gathering but be selective about who they admit. They should prevent obviously drunken people or troublemakers from participating. The get-together can be publicized as a private dance with everyone invited but not all admitted. The rumors and images surrounding it might be awash with falsehoods and misinterpretations, but at least a safe space would be available.

The aforementioned solutions are just ideas for how the problems with the current dance might be able to be fixed. I can't guarantee they would work, as it all depends on the execution, but something radical needs to be done.


Josiah '02

UC Irvine

jcarlson@uci.edu