Student input overlooked in Review's BDSM article

To the Editors:

I have a riddle for you; what does Sadomasochism Bondage and Discipline (SMBD) and science have in common. Give up? Answer: Professor John Scofield, Dale Preston-Director of Regional Alumni Affairs, and a 60 million dollar building. If you are still having difficulty with the connection, than you obviously missed last Thursday's SMBD forum to discuss the controversial chartering of the SMBD club.

Although Douglas Gillison summed up the panel discussion of last Thursday eve, he also managed to edit out all of the student input and response to the matter. An omission which undermines the very nature for holding such a program. In the end, the students will not have a say in the chartering of the club. Although students now sit on the newly formed Student Union board, the General Faculty are still making chartering decisions without a student voice. The dilemma then is partly an issue of responsibility, especially on the staff of the Review to include all relevant information. Those faculty and staff in support of the club's right to exist will not have the benefit of citing comments made in the meeting and concerns raised by students if they were not in attendance. Perhaps I would not be on the attack so much if Douglas Gillison had not made an opinionated statement at the meeting, which may be why I am so conscious as to his biased coverage as well. Gillison asked about money which the College cannot provide for him for textbooks, but which is now being used to begin an SMBD library and to bring speakers for the club, etc. Of course, the money given to the SMBD club was from SFC, and should the club not exist, that money would be reappropriated to other student organizations, in the end, having nothing to do with Gillison at all. (Do we know that the SFC budget comes from our activities fee? Good.)

But the point of my tirade is not directed at Gillison's article, as much as with the changing face of this campus. At least I have the benefit of knowing that other, more proactive students, will be making the pertinent political arguments that the discussion raised; the fact that this club is unusual, the fact that this club has made the local and national news before, revenue from alumni gifts is not in danger (a revenue that is, in realty, the same as Wesleyan's 45 percent rate). What I care to focus on is the issue of the sciences. For I was not aware, until recently, that I was attending a college of arts and SCIENCES. Had I known that, I may have gone somewhere else. In many of President Dye's speech of late, she sounds like a supporter of the arts, yet, I can say that I feel threatened, or at least, ignored, both as a Theater major and as a future alumna. The focus of the meeting on Thursday was somehow sidetracked around the attraction of this college for science students. Scofield was disturbed at the drop in science interest in the incoming Freshman class. Apparently, this is indirectly related to the existence of an SMBD club using the logic that scientists are of a different moral fabric. Well, the incoming Freshman class expressed an amazingly high interest in the Theater and Dance Program, but we don't have a new building in the works (we don't even have decent rehearsal space). As for the idea that Alum won't give us any more money, it seems that someone is underestimating our graduates. For in the end, who ever said that a bunch of research assistants and university professors who come out of the science program are going to be our pot of gold either?

If you are thinking that this is a very self-serving commentary, you are partly right. However, this issue effects everyone more than they realize. What you see, hear and engage in at this college is at risk. The arts of today are informed by today. From literature, poetry, painting to the theater the most exciting art can capture the pulse of the modern era. And although some may not understand it, part of that pulse is informed by SMBD. SMBD is a mature way of expressing identity that many people already experience and create for themselves without giving it an official title. One is ignorant in today's society if they don't know what this anagram stands for. Last year I would have never thought to ask someone's permission to produce a work of art with mature content. This year, I have had countless meetings about "sensitivity" and "changing climates." If the faculty and staff believe that the SMBD club is out to win converts, they are very wrong. If they feel this way today, they may turn on subjects like Queer Theory tomorrow. Jean Genet is not leaving the theatrical cannon anytime soon, the Marquis de Sade is still read, and believe me when I say, neither of them will turn up in your science textbook if you don't put them there. Thank you,

--Sarah Rooney

Senior Theater Major and Theater Student Representative

Students need to support Aganthangelou

To the Editor:

This is an open letter to the Oberlin College community regarding the fate of one woman and the Women's Studies Program. Anna Agathangelou is being reviewed by the College Faculty Council to determine whether she should be reappointed for another year. This academic year will be Anna's third year teaching at Oberlin as a visiting professor both in the women's studies and politics departments.

In a letter to student representatives on the Women's Studies Committee, Sonia Kruks, chair of the Women's Studies Program, states, "the Program seeks further student input in evaluating [Anna's] teaching, beyond that provided by the end-of-semester teaching evaluation forms." However, neither reasonable time nor resources have been accorded to the student reps. This undermines their ability to properly organize and present a strong case to CFC on behalf of Prof. Agathangelou. This threatens Anna's chances for a fair and accurate evaluation.

It must be stressed that Anna's position is vital within both programs. She serves as a resource and supporter for women, students of color, low-income students, queer students, and first-generation students. Her presence exposes the contradictions of this college, which claims to be concerned about the retention of historically marginalized and underrepresented students; and it would be a grave mistake to 'allow' Anna to leave, when she is one of the few faculty supporters of these communities. Anna's reputation as a challenging and supportive professor brings more students to her classes each semester than she can ever possibly allow into them. Many students who have historically felt that the Women's Studies Program was not for them are able to make new connections in her classes and are forced to rethink their perceptions of what the Program is and what it can be. The same is true for students who have always been committed to the Women's Studies Program; they are forced to reexamine their own personal relation to feminism, and to map out their own commitment to various social justice struggles.

Heather West, OC alum and current organizer at the Grassroots Leadership Development Program in Lorain, writes in a letter to the CFC, "Oberlin College, and the Women's Studies Department in particular, have an embarrassingly long history of attracting very dynamic ...women of color professors to teach at this school, and then not doing what is necessary to keep them here." Anna Agathangelou may be latest example of this phenomenon; bell hooks and Chandra Mohanty, as former non-tenured faculty, were also a part of this pattern. We demand that Anna Agathangelou be asked to remain with the college for another year, leading towards a tenured position.

It is necessary that students hold the College more accountable to us and to faculty of color. And it is not enough to point fingers, but we must actively engage the College, and be accountable ourselves to asserting our needs and rights within this institution. Realize your agency! Demonstrate your support for Anna Agathangelou, specifically, by signing a statement of support outside of Wilder, or through e-mail; if you are interested in helping organize this student effort, please contact one of us.

-Kristen Keniray

College sophomore

-Mary Jerzak

College senior

Curmudgeon's diatribe against smokers was irresponsible, juvenile

To the Editors:

I feel that someone must say something in response to Mary Margaret Towey's inaccurate, unnecessary and ad hominem attack against the tobacco consumers of Oberlin College.

I am not a smoker, I never have been and I never will be, but the self-righteous wrath of the militant non-smoker never ceases to amaze me. While I would agree that use of tobacco is a relatively unhealthy habit and is certainly an expensive one, the meaningless and absurd comparisons that Towey uses repeatedly in her "diatribe" cross the bounds of any sense of journalistic integrity. She implies, it seems, that tobacco is in some sense more dangerous that crack or heroin; she claims that tobacco is the only substance on the planet that kills its user when used exactly as intended, where crack and heroin must be abused in order to have lethal effects. Tobacco is certainly less dangerous as a general rule than virtually any drug that humans become addicted to. Drugs such as alcohol, crack, and heroin carry the very real risk of unintentional overdose, and can lead to the devastation of families as the user becomes more and more dependent on the drug and less involved with other aspects of his or her life. It is true that when a person becomes addicted to nicotine and smokes for a long period of time, there is an increased chance of some forms of disease, but to compare that in any way to crack, heroin or even alcohol is completely absurd.

The Russian roulette comparison is barely even worth mention, but I cannot in good conscience let that go completely unnoticed. Smoking enough tobacco to seriously damage one's health is a long-term choice, a type of lifestyle and one that many people do thoroughly enjoy and find satisfying in various ways. To gamble with one's life by pointing a gun at one's own head is not even remotely the same type of risk.

Rather than spending half of her editorial space calling smokers "morons," "pathetic" and "idiots," Towey might also consider (for the sake of balance and the loosest attempt at credibility) reducing the unqualified ad hominem attacks against people she has never met and admitting that the studies that she relies on have been shown to be at least in part inaccurate. Smokers "fuck with OUR health," she says, with the OUR presumably referring to those she considers morally superior to the tobacco-using scum, the much revered non-smoker. It is probably safe to assume that she is referring to the studies done by various government agencies that were greatly publicized showing justification for the classification of second-hand cigarette smoke as a class A carcinogen. Although it was not largely publicized, it is true that the United States Supreme Court recently struck down those studies as inaccurate and unscientific. It does not support the popular movement against the tobacco-using population, but it is true that these "scientific" studies created by the government were guilty of the exact same errors that so many accuse the tobacco industry of committing; some data was left out that did not support certain conclusions, and the studies were set up in such a way that the result that was desired was certain to be found to be the case. It remains a possibility that second hand smoke can, in theory, damage the health of those exposed to it, but it is not a certainty, and the only studies that have ever shown it to be truly dangerous were a lie, and blown far out of proportion.

I do not find smoking to be desirable or something that I would ever choose to participate in, but Towey's editorial was irresponsible, inaccurate and juvenile. If there is any sense of integrity, honesty or responsibility left in her, she owes the tobacco smokers of Oberlin an apology.

-Matthew Bell

College senior

Help save the wilderness: boycott BP

To the Editors:

I'd like to voice my opinion on a serious matter; the life or death of the last great wilderness.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has the last remaining 19 million acres of virgin wilderness in North America, and is home to many species we regard as characteristic of the North. Polar bears make it their most important denning area, over 180 species of migratory birds nest there and the Porcupine River Caribou Herd travel for thousands of miles to breed and nest their young in its North Slope coastal plains.

Today, Exxon (of Exxon Valdez accident fame), Arco, British Petroleum and Chevron covet this coastal plain for short-term profit and exploitation. They've gone to great lengths to advertise this area as useless and barren which is untrue, as even Newt Gingrich will vouch. Funded by an anti-Refuge interest group he visited the area and pronounced, "the bias should be in favor of preserving that remarkable asset". The oil companies already own 95percent of the North Slope, why do they need the remaining 5 percent which is the Refugee's biological heart? At most the recoverable oil present here would provide six months of oil, a trivial figure considering the loss.

Before these companies decide to destroy this unique place they should take into account the Gwich'in people, a tribe who for 20,000 years has taken part in the Refugee's ecosystem, substituting exclusively on the Caribou. Both would greatly suffer the consequences of drilling in the coastal plain. As a concerned Ohio citizen I urge BP to take these matters into serious consideration. I am certain we can ask of this company, whose headquarters are in Cleveland, to be responsible, socially and environmentally, and pull out of the area. BP claims to be an environmentally friendly company, it's time they prove it. We, as citizens of Ohio, should put them to task for this and boycott till they do.

-Alicia Araya

Double- Degree fifth- year