Dennis Dalton

Barnard professor and internationally recognized scholar Dennis Dalton, who has taught the same two-semester political theory sequence since 1969, will give his last lecture this Thursday. The announcement of his retirement shook up Barnard’s political science department, which has not needed to recruit someone to teach political theory in nearly 40 years, thanks to Dalton’s lengthy and much-acclaimed tenure.

In the twilight hours of Nov. 15, I was one of five Columbia students who helped organize that night’s rally against the hunger strike. Contrary to faulty Spectator coverage, over 80 concerned students, who were opposed to the strike but also interested in dialogue, gathered around the outstretched arms of Alma Mater and discussed their various reasons for enduring the cold.

In joining the hunger strike, Dennis Dalton is bringing the ideas he teaches to life.

While a professor's deciding to join the hunger strike is a bold move that will surely get the attention of the administration, teachers should look for sustainable ways to express their solidarity in the classroom and on an academic level.

Picture an office flooded with volumes by Gandhi, Einstein, Lao Tzu, Hitler, and Plato, all losing pages from being read, and walls decked in photographs of the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, and Marx.