Letters To the Editor

Op-Ed Misuses Word “Crippled” in an Offensive, Prejudiced Manner to Describe Injury

To the Editor:

While I don’t want to undermine Eyitemi Fregene’s accomplishment in the Columbia Outdoor Hiking Orientation Program, as she wrote about in the Oct. 29 article “The Climb to August,” I find her repeated use of the word “cripple” to be extremely offensive. Etymologically and culturally, to call someone “a cripple” is politically incorrect, not to mention inaccurate in Ms. Fregene’s case. From the Old English for “to crook, or bend,” to be “crippled” is to be deformed in some way. From her description, it seemed unlikely that she was bent in some way. Had she written that she was “crippled” by an event, or that the sheer enormity of her injury was “crippling,” it would not have had the same impact. To call oneself a “cripple” ignores the cultural implications of the word, and its distasteful connotation. Ms. Fregene was not and is not a “cripple.” She was unfortunately injured, but there is no question that the word “cripple” is abusive and archaic. The Spectator should have urged this writer to re-edit her article, taking into account that she is, though perhaps not purposefully, offending a discriminated group of people and prejudicing her words so that her actions are blunted by the force of her usage.

Jennie Rose Halperin, BC ’10
Music Editor
October 30, 2008

Columbia Psychological Services Seeks to Promote Student Awareness of Programs and Workshops

To the Editor:

We value the Spectator’s feedback regarding Counseling and Psychological Services in your editorial (“See Me, Hear Me, Help Me, Hear Me,” Oct. 31). We concur with the Spectator that in order to promote the psychological well-being of our community, we all need to work together to destigmatize mental health problems and increase awareness of counseling and other support services.

CPS, a department within Health Services, is committed to providing rapid access to mental health care through a spectrum of outreach initiatives, including residence hall offices in Carman, East Campus, Hartley, and 600 W. 113th Street, which are designed to allow students to drop in for counseling with CPS clinicians without an appointment or even leaving their dorms. These offices offer an informal way for students to access counseling services that may reduce stigma. Other initiatives include targeted training for residence life advisers, faculty, and staff to help them approach students in distress and facilitate referrals to counseling services; wide availability of online and print educational materials; as well as participation in annual student events to familiarize students with counseling opportunities. As your editorial noted, CPS also conducts a significant number of workshops every year, as well as study breaks, panel discussions, and film screenings on mental health issues. Collectively, we have found that these efforts are effective points of entry for those who are uncertain about the need for counseling assistance or ambivalent about seeking help.

With these efforts in place, almost one in five Columbia students, or about 20 percent of students, utilize CPS each year. We estimate that about half of undergraduates contact our services over the course of their four-year education at Columbia. These data are a testament to the efficacy of our efforts to meet the wellness needs of students.

All that notwithstanding, we can always do more to reach students in a creative way. We encourage students or any on-campus organization to provide additional input and help identify ways to enhance our services by contacting Dr. Calvin Chin at cc803@columbia.edu. For more information about counseling services and programs, students may visit www.health.columbia.edu.

Richard Eichler, Ph.D.
Director
Counseling and Psychological Services
Health Services at Columbia

Calvin Chin, Ph.D.
Assistant Director of Outreach and Community Clinical Services
Counseling and Psychological Services
Health Services at Columbia

November 7, 2008

Frontiers of Science Motivates First-Year Students to Consider 21st-Century Scientific Questions

To the Editor:

While I have yet to have the pleasure of meeting Ms. Elaine Wang, readers of the Spectator are unlikely to be surprised that I found her Nov. 7 op-ed piece, “A New Perspective on Frontiers of Science,” to be both refreshing and perspicacious. She has not only stated clearly the central goals of the course, but has also, in my view, identified a key problem with student satisfaction: Frontiers presents an approach unfamiliar to those fresh from high-school science classes. It is not about facts and formulae, but about developing modes of thought and recognizing the ambiguities and limitations of science. Frontiers is not about 17th-century physics, 19th-century chemistry, or 20th-century biology (as are the vast majority of high-school science courses)—it is about 21st-century science in which the most interesting questions are those for which we do not yet have answers. Most importantly, it is a university-level course designed to make students think.

Two years ago, I had a student in another (non-Frontiers) science requirement course I was teaching who was having difficulty with the assigned problem sets. She regularly came to my office for help (sadly, an increasingly rare occurrence) and in a moment of particular frustration, blurted out “But Professor Helfand, you have to understand—Google your problems and nothing comes back!” I gently explained that’s why I call them “problems”—they are not exercises designed to generate a grade proportional to the efficacy with which one can type into the upper-right-hand corner of a Web browser, they are designed to make one think deeply about the concepts raised by the course—as are all aspects of Frontiers.

One criticism of Frontiers I have never understood is the “I-learned-all-this-in-high-school” argument or, as Ms. Wang puts it—that the course is considered “dumb”. While I am willing—anxious even—to ascribe the highest level of intellectual ability to Columbia first-years, and to expect them to have an excellent high school preparation, the notion that they can learn nothing from Frontiers is hard to square with the fact that the faculty find the material challenging.

Following each lecture, the faculty meet and engage in an hour of intensive questioning and debate with the lecturer, a conversation that usually continues all week via e-mail. It’s just a little hard to believe that the collection of Ph.D.s teaching in Frontiers including a physics Nobel Laureate, a National Medal of Science winner, and many leading researchers in their fields are all so much less capable than the majority of Columbia first-year students.

The two dozen senior faculty and the cadre of postdoctoral science fellows who teach in Frontiers have, as Ms. Wang notes, been working to improve the course since it its inception five years ago. As scientists, we view this enterprise as an experiment—one rarely, if ever, attempted at other institutions—and, as scientists, are aware our experiments can always be improved. We hope, as Ms. Wang’s closing sentiment suggest, that Columbia students will work with us toward this goal.

Professor David Helfand
Co-chair of Frontiers of Science
Chair of the Department of Astronomy.
November 9, 2008

Frontiers of Science Fulfills Core Curriculum Aim of Teaching Critical Thinking and Analysis

To the Editor:

Frontiers of Science is tough: tough for most students to learn, and even tougher for the faculty to teach. So why is this course in Columbia’s Core Curriculum? Our Core is directed toward forming educated citizens of the United States and of the world—we know that these two aims are inseparable. This education includes literature and history and art and music but, above all, it focuses on thinking: on the power to critically analyze what is said, written, heard, and seen. Columbia students are gifted in the traditional subjects of the Core, quite well-prepared by their secondary school educations to excel (okay, maybe writing needs some work). The notable exception is science. Most students come to science with one hand tied behind their backs. For the most part, the kind of science taught in elementary, middle, and high school is as much like the way a scientist actually discovers new things as “Chopsticks” is like the “Moonlight Sonata.” Being staunch optimists, your Columbia faculty firmly believe that all of you can become more powerful writers and thinkers, and the science faculty add to this that you can acquire the analytical tools that you will need in order to make creative, knowledgeable decisions about the challenges you will face as a person, as a family, and as a nation. We will not stand down from our goals. Elaine Wang, in her Nov. 7 op-ed, “A New Perspective on Frontiers of Science,” has seen the goals and the challenges, and I am sure that she will draw a heated response. We would like to invite you to respond to us, the Frontiers faculty, as well. Science progresses through testing and revision. Frontiers has benefited already from the ideas of our students, and we look forward to working with you.

Professor Darcy Kelley
Co-chair of the Frontiers of Science
Professor of Biology
November 10, 2008