Letters to the Editor

Mistreatment of General Studies Students Drives Them to Transfer Out

To the Editor:

How interesting Spectator endorses the illicit actions of Brody Berg, an individual responsible for the illegitimate removal of popular General Studies Student Body President Niko Cunningham. Indeed, Berg’s unmitigated antipathy toward Cunningham compelled him to arrange an impeachment vote. When the initial vote failed, Berg orchestrated yet another. Fortunately for Berg, GS Dean of Students Mary McGee legitimized his illegitimate actions. Sadly, McGee is no stranger to wrongful interpretation of school policy. For example, when a GS student was harassed by a Columbia College student, McGee not only failed to follow protocol as delineated in FACETS, she, along with GS Associate Dean Dominic Stellini, threatened the victim with expulsion and censor. Interestingly, censor is officially construed as punishment, yet the victim violated no policy nor broke any laws. As a result, the GS student was needlessly compelled to seek legal counsel, at a very dear price, and has since threatened to sue the school.

Such top-down breaches of ethics parlay into the perception that GS students are second-class academics. Sensitive to this perception, GS students are dropping out at alarming rates. However, their actions are not surprising. GS students pay the same tuition as their counterparts, yet they are systematically denied access to financial resources, Teachers College, housing, joint programs, and access to facilities, to name a few. It is therefore folly to assume that Niko Cunningham, or any student representative, can effectively tackle the overwhelming pragmatic needs of GS students without the full support of the administration. Moreover, such needs cannot be addressed until the underlying bias against GS is brought into view. Such prejudices permeate the campus, for they are inscribed in the psyche of administrators as well as students. They are etched in the wit of the Columbia College student who brazenly harassed the GS student. They are fixed in the will of administrators who interpret policy in accord with their liking. Moreover, they are emblazoned in the minds of GS students, who perpetuate such foolishness because they have been indoctrinated with foolishness.

To combat Columbia’s thoughtlessness, GS students are seeking diplomas in other institutions which consider them assets instead of liabilities. Accordingly, they are not dropping out, but dropping in to schools that are responsive to their needs. The University of Pennsylvania, for example, boasts the College of General Studies, which offers an Ivy League education at approximately half the price of Columbia. Moreover, it does so in an environment that is considerate to non-traditional students. Until Columbia learns to recognize that GS is the jewel in its crown, highly qualified students will continue to flock to greener pastures. Moreover, theatrical spectacles of impeachment, directed by misguided administrators, and performed affront a myopic audience will continue to play out upon Columbia’s stage of internal bickering.

Paul Farinella, GS, University of Pennsylvania ’10
April 15, 2008

GSlounge.com Not Just Created by Brody Berg as Editorial States

To the Editor:

Honesty and integrity are the building blocks of any respected educational community. Through our acknowledgement of the intellectual accomplishments of the past, we are able to build a better, more informed future. As students of Columbia University, we are constantly reminded about the value of academic integrity, not because we fear cheaters, but more important, because we are right to hold work that is our own in high regard. As the founder of the GSLounge.com, I am happy that the site has received some great press coverage, but unfortunately there have been some gross misrepresentations with regards to whose idea the site was. In Spectator’s endorsement of presidential candidate Brody Berg, the author stated, “[Berg] created the impressive GS student Web site, gslounge.com, which has become a forum for numerous student blogs.” Contrary to this statement, Brody Berg is not the creator of the GSLounge—I am. As members of the Columbia community these misrepresentations stand in opposition to the principles laid out by the Columbia Code of Academic Honesty published in the School of General Studies student bulletin.

The caption at the bottom of every GSLounge page, which reads “Created by Brody Berg for the General Studies Student Body and Council,” is misleading, and is a misrepresentation of authorship. Specifically, the declaration of Academic Integrity and Community Standards states, “It is essential to the academic integrity and vitality of this community that individuals do their own work and properly acknowledge the circumstances, ideas, sources and assistance upon which that work is based.” Berg is free to take credit for all that he has done, but credit for the lounge is not his alone. The GSLounge.com was founded in April 2006 as an independent Web site. It was an idea that I created and implemented with the help of many individuals along the way, each of whom have played diverse and important roles in developing the framework that Brody has built upon. Through various manifestations and many rounds of negotiation between the GSSC and myself, it officially became the Web site of the GSSC in the fall of 2006. At that time, I was serving as Brody Berg’s predecessor in the role VP of Communications, and the council agreed that maintenance of the GSLounge.com would become the responsibility of future VP’s of Communications.

The lounge was built to address the extremely diverse nature of the General Studies student body, which at the time badly needed a hub to empower and connect a disparate community. One of GS’s greatest assets is the variety of lifestyles that each of our students live, this also becomes an impediment to fostering a cohesive and centralized community. After the GSLounge was created it quickly began to fill that void, and facilitate a more vibrant, unified GS community.

I am happy to see the ways in which Brody Berg has upgraded the infrastructure and expanded the functionality of GSLounge.com, but I believe that credit should be given where credit is due. Failing to acknowledge the contributions of the past is failing to uphold the spirit in which the GSLounge was created. It is not my intention to take an undue share of the credit, as I believe that both Brody Berg, and a multitude of past and present contributors have been integral to the success of the GSLounge. I am merely writing today to ensure that truth be told.

Amit Vachher-Gnanathurai, GS
April 16, 2008

Article on Tibet and the Dalai Llama Contains Outrageous Falsehoods

To the Editor:

The editors and readers of Spectator need to be aware of some egregious falsities that were printed in Christina Liu’s April 14 opinion article on Tibet. I write not out of religious indignation, but mere shock that such statements were made and unchecked before print.

Ms. Liu’s most outrageous statement is that “One Dalai Lama has admitted to having sex with a hundred men and women, knowing all the while that he had AIDS.” That this passed the editors’ muster is embarrassing. Anyone familiar with the history of the Dalai Lamas would recognize it as patently untrue in any way. However, I’m pretty sure I can surmise where Ms. Liu is drawing it from. The story she is telling is that of an infamous American-born teacher of Tibetan Buddhism who lived in Boulder, Colo. and who did indeed do the things she is here attributing to “One Dalai Lama.” Ms. Liu is either counting on the general public’s ignorance of Tibetan history and religion to spread rather nasty rumors, or, more likely, she is herself confused about the Tibetan term “lama” and its function in the title “Dalai Lama.” A lama is simply a term for a religious teacher. Therefore, the aforementioned degenerate teacher in Boulder would have had that appellation. The Dalai Lama, however, is an official title granted by the Mongol Emperor, Altan Khan, to his favorite spiritual teacher in the sixteenth century. The title was then reserved for a specific lineage of alleged reincarnations of that teacher. Aside from a shared religion, there is absolutely no link between any of the Dalai Lamas, and the corrupt religious teacher in Boulder, Colo. Pardon the comparison, but this is equivalent to saying that Mother Theresa sodomized young boys.

Second, Ms. Liu states that in Buddhism, “Ritualistically, women were seen as impure, inferior, and a temptation for monks. Many monks participated in the dismemberment of female bodies.” The first sentence is a legitimate contention. The second, however, is as bizarre and untrue as it sounds. Unless Ms. Liu can cite some record of a habitual tendency for monks to assault and dismember females, it again smacks of a gross ignorance of the subject matter. I can only assume she is referring to a well-known method of contemplation in which monks are taught to visualize the dissection of the female body (as well as their own) in order to realize that the body is nothing more than a collection of flesh, bones, and “impure” fluids. It is meant as a way for celibate monks to reduce sexual attraction to the human form. Ms. Liu seems to wrongly interpret the whole thing as literal dismemberment. This is simply intellectually irresponsible.

I am all for a critical appraisal of the myth of utopian Tibet, as well as the critique of sexism and so forth in Buddhism’s history. However, Ms. Liu shows that she is in no position to edify us on the subject. In the future, the editors of Spectator should be more vigilant in their fact checking.

On a more subtle level, it is difficult to see what Ms. Liu’s ad hominem arguments against the Dalai Lama and Buddhism have to do with the issue of political autonomy for Tibet. As in the case of Burma, the Tibetan people’s religious beliefs are secondary to their basic desire for human rights.

Joseph McClellan, GSAS Ph.D. candidate
April 16, 2008