Category Archives: Letter to the editor

A Letter to the Editor

What is Europe?

Letter to the editor

Re: Europe’s Urgent Security Challenge (editorial, April 11):

To the editor:

The article ends by recommending that European countries abandon attitudes and structures that impede counterterrorism cooperation. However, the article only mentions Western European countries, and thus underestimates the difficulties of cooperation. The author comes across as just another armchair theorist.

The article’s definition is too narrow because ISIL branches have claimed responsibility for all European attacks, including those in Turkey as well as France and Belgium. Turkey has a strategic location for intelligence and operations on the other side of Europe, which can be substantial if utilized efficiently. Countries such as Poland and Hungary, which the article ignores, may not be target countries, but as part of the EU and Schengen, they provide easy border access. Border access is crucial to monitor because terrorist networks have been found to work across borders.

It is important to a successful counterterrorism strategy to include countries in the East, but this inclusion makes cooperation significantly more difficult. Britain, Germany, and France have a great deal of economic and political power and run the EU, so Poland and Hungary may feel their best interests are not accounted for. This is evident in their reluctance to cooperate with other European countries on the matter of refugees. Hungary already built a wall to block out refugees and Poland has refused to accept any more refugees after the Brussels attack. The above-mentioned countries are part of the standard understanding of Europe, yet the article fails to acknowledge the role they play in European security. Turkey, further removed from Western European power, doesn’t benefit from the EU. Though Turkey is involved in NATO, that involvement focuses on military operations and relies on national intelligence agencies for support. Hence, counterterrorism cooperation between the West and Turkey still leaves much room for improvement.

Solving Europe’s security challenge requires cooperation not only between Western European countries but with the others as well. Thus, the article overestimates the feasibility of the cooperation it recommends.

Your Fear of Millennials is Showing

Letter to the editor

Re: “Study Abroad’s Seven Deadly Sins” (The New York Times, April 8 2016)

To the editor:

I opened the article titled The Seven Deadly Sins of Study Abroad with interest, hoping to find helpful tips for students preparing to move abroad. These students are like me—last year I lived and studied in Aix-en-Provence, France and had a wonderful and rich experience. As such, I was disappointed by the article’s misguided “advice” aimed at American students living, or considering living, abroad.

The audience that the author, Peter Coclanis, is addressing is a vague conglomerate of students “who go into a program without much forethought, focus or purpose.” It is unclear exactly what he means by this, or what amount of forethought and focus he deems appropriate in 20 year-olds, but there are more salient details of the article I would like to unpack.

First of all, the author blames students for enrolling in English language courses because they don’t have the language skills to “direct enroll” in courses at local institutions. This this is a structural issue for which students should not be faulted. If this is to change, then language requirements pre-enrollment need to be stricter and more classes need to be offered abroad in order to cater to a wider set of language levels.

The author also criticizes the lifestyle choices of young people studying abroad. He accuses them of drinking too much, as if study abroad students are the only ones who do this, and suggests that students having sexual relationships abroad are consumed only with sex—staying in bed all day every day, only to take a break to “order Domino’s.” This commentary is comically misguided and out of touch. In fact, it is possible to have a sex life, a social life and an academic life all at once—abroad or not. The author also makes a bizarre and upsetting comment about Amanda Knox’s “misadventures” in Italy, as if her case should be a warning to women in sexual relationships abroad.

While the author may have written this article with good intentions, he places excessive blame on students and is so comically out of touch that the article seems like a parody of itself.

The author having a great (and culturally appropriate time!) in France
The author having a great (and culturally appropriate!) time in France

As a (recent) study abroad alum, I am calling Professor Coclanis out on his misguided commentary on American students abroad. Yes, they may take classes in English. Yes, they may drink and have sex. But these activities are not sins, and they do not in any way inhibit a successful, rich, and productive study abroad experience.

Gaps in Knowledge

Letter to the editor

Re: “Don’t Send Your Kids to College. At Least Not Yet.” (The New York Times, Opinion, April 5, 2016)

To the Editor:

In a recent piece, Abigail Falik argues that one way to improve the American university system is to encourage students to take a gap year after high school. She cites issues like high stress levels among college students and increasing freshman dropout rates. Although gap years can be very beneficial for some students, they are not the solution to these specific problems. Students who are unprepared to succeed in college are likely to be just as unprepared to benefit from real-world experience during a gap year.

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Whoever said it was impossible to ruin hard-boiled eggs clearly did not take a gap year.

During my gap year I struggled with time management, budgeting, and self-care while trying to hold down a job, and I wish I had had the opportunity to learn these lessons in an environment populated with my peers and with resources at hand to assist me. Falik mentions some universities that have developed ‘bridge year’ programs that provide guidance for students (as well as financial assistance) during gap years. However, in addition to needing more support during my gap year, I felt that the time off caused some of the skills I perfected in high school, such as exam taking, to evaporate entirely. This negatively impacted my grades during my freshman year and has already limited my employment opportunities. Until labor market outcomes post-graduation are less dependent on grades, gap years may come back to haunt students later in life.

College should be a safe space where students can develop from teenagers into working adults. Growing up is stressful wherever you are and whatever you happen to be doing. Let’s let kids finish the process in each other’s company, while getting the education they need to succeed in the real world.

The Continuing Missteps of Bernie Sanders

Letter to the editor,

To the Editor:

In the article “Early Missteps Seen as a Drag on Bernie Sander’s Campaign” (April 3) Patrick Healy and Yamiche Alcindor discuss how Senator Sanders’s lack of campaigning in 2015 has hindered his success in early Democratic primaries. However, his missteps have not been limited only to the early part of his campaign. Sanders has won seventeen states thus far, the majority of which hold caucuses and not primary elections. Caucuses tend to favor candidates with extremely enthusiastic supporters, something Sanders has in droves. His campaign has thus been able to exploit the caucus system to their benefit. However, with only two Democratic caucuses remaining, the question remains whether or not this strategy of relying on the devoted base will work in states which use primary elections to assign electoral delegates.

Caucuses, one of the systems used during presidential primaries to select candidates, ought to be abandoned. Caucuses are the original system of American voting, a holdover from the days when land-owning white men, many of whom did not have professions, were the only Americans with the right to vote. Today the caucus system continues to discourage participation from working-class voters. Caucuses take hours, and a participant needs to be present the whole time. A low-wage worker, someone who works multiple jobs, or a parent without access to childcare can easily spend a few minutes casting a ballot at a local polling station. However many of them cannot afford to clear their schedules and devote a whole day to caucusing.

Although Senator Sanders often speaks of his desire to improve conditions for blue-collar workers, he has focused on campaigning to Millennials worried about college costs and retirees worried about their pensions and Social Security. Sanders’s rallies provide soundbites for the Internet generation, but he’s neglected the kind of small-time, face-to-face campaigning that tends to be popular with working-to-middle-class voters. These people often cannot participate in caucuses, but they vote. Unless Sanders’s campaign strategy changes, many of those votes won’t go to him.

Parents, Pay for College

Letter to the editor

Re “Should You Pay for Your Child’s College Education?” (NBC News, April 3, 2016):

You make the point that it’s okay for parents to decide not to pay for their kids’ college when they don’t have the means. This is certainly true, but such parents are not addressed in the article. Your suggestion that parents make their financial support conditional on their children’s grades and have them take a gap year to work—at most likely a minimum-wage job—is not financially useful for parents who truly don’t have the means to pay. Parents who really can’t pay could decide not to send their child to college at all, but nowhere does the article suggest that this is an option. The parents the article actually addresses are those who don’t want to pay but still expect their children to find a way to go to college.

In case these parents feel a twinge of guilt about forcing their kids to take on massive debt to pay for college, the article soothes their concerns: “Not all high school seniors are academically or emotionally ready for college.” A year in the working world “gives them a sense of accountability,” says the article, so making your children work to pay for college is actually good for them. To judge from its title, the article is about the parents’ finances. However, a child’s emotional readiness has little to do with finances, except that it excuses parents’ unwillingness to pay.

Some parents have good reasons not to pay for college. Those addressed in the article do not. Parents who have the means to pay for college and expect their children to go to college should pay for their children’s college education.

Growing Fences

Letter to the editor

In response to “Donald Trump is a monster, yes. But that’s what many Americans actually want” by Tim Stanley, Telegraph UK

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12047232/Donald-Trump-is-a-monster-yes.-But-thats-what-many-Americans-actually-want.html

 

To the Editor,

Although Stanley accurately points out Trump’s absurd attributes that have led to his popularity, Trump is not a uniquely American problem. Americans are heavily criticized for Trump’s shocking success in the presidential race. He mocks minorities, promises to build a wall blocking immigration from Central and Latin America, and threatens to ban Muslims from entering into the United States. While Trump has considerable public support, especially for his strict immigration platform, we cannot blame American ideological shortcomings alone for Trump’s popularity. In fact, his kind of radical anti-immigration philosophy is shared among many other world leaders. For example, Marine le Pen received 18% of the vote in the French presidential election in 2012 and is speculated to run for office again in 2017. Le Pen was charged with a hate crime for a speech in 2015 in which she compared Muslims to Nazis. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán built a 175km fence along his country’s border with Serbia and Croatia and established new asylum laws in order to purge Hungary of refugees. Although there are still progressive and humane leaders in Europe, the growing popularity of these immoral immigration policies warrants concern, as they close borders and promote hostility in an already tumultuous political climate. The rising fear of terrorism incites individuals to agree with these conservative ideologies, increasing the chances of the populist, conservative, anti-immigration political factions being elected into office. Donald Trump “isn’t quite as out of the mainstream as he first appears,” as Stanley points out, but in fact he is part of a global phenomenon of xenophobia that will tear the world apart if it is not recognized and stopped.

Sincerely,

Rachel

 

 

 

Just Because it is a Right…

Letter to the editor

To the Editor:

Re “The Republican Gun Free Zone” (The New York Times, Opinion, March 31, 2016):

Gun control is assuredly a contentious issue in the United States. Gail Collins points out the hypocrisy of the GOP leadership—whose members advocate for the abolition of gun-free zones but haven’t fought the Secret Service’s decision to ban guns at the Republican National Convention. The Bill of Rights may give Americans the right to keep and bear arms, but that does not mean civilians need to exercise that right at all times. Alarmingly, many disagree with that sentiment. This is evidenced by the change.org petition to allow firearms at the RNC that received thousands of signatures from many who were unaware of its satirical nature.

Meanwhile the GOP forges ahead with flawed policies that expose the hypocrisy of its position: in Texas, people licensed to carry a firearm may bring loaded and concealed weapons onto the premises of all state colleges and universities. Essentially, GOP leaders push for lax gun regulations where they are not personally at risk, such as on college campuses, but when the Secret Service tells them they can’t bring firearms to their own convention they don’t fight back. Why isn’t this an intolerable infringement upon a fundamental right? What happened to the legendary GOP firepower on this issue they claim to care about so passionately? While the GOP leadership sorts out its hypocritical relationship with firearms, the public ought to realize that just as there is no need for firearms at a political convention, there is no room for guns on college campuses.

-Samantha Marrus, Independent

New York, NY | Wellesley, MA

Bless Me, Professor, for I Have Studied Abroad

Letter to the editor

Re “Study Abroad’s Seven Deadly Sins” (The New York Times, Opinion, April 10, 2016):

Peter Coclanis’s article points out what he calls the “Seven Deadly Sins” of study abroad.  These “sins,” he says, allow “immature” students to treat foreign countries as their playground.  He ignores the fact that many of these “sins” are committed in the U.S.  He also premises his argument on the notion that most, if not many, students are easily led into temptation (and ruin).

Mr. Coclanis argues that readily available “suds” make American students abroad more inclined to spend their time drinking than studying.  But students abroad who show up to their 9 a.m. classes hungover are probably doing the same thing back home.  Mr. Coclanis disregards the many study abroad students who are less apt to partake in party cultures, or are simply more capable of balancing their social and academic lives.

He derides “slide courses”—classes taught in English that are not up to par with American university standards—as a study abroad phenomenon, again ignoring that they exist in the U.S. as well.  Of course, just as not all students abroad indulge in “suds,” not all classes abroad can be pegged as “slide courses.”  At the same time, if the classroom experience is the be-all and end-all of study abroad, then students might as well “stay at State U,” where Mr. Coclanis implies classes are superior.  Education abroad, on the other hand, might take place in more unconventional settings, such as at a cooking workshop, or in a discussion with one’s host family.

From his perch in academia, Mr. Coclanis has pinpointed a handful of actions he finds objectionable and attributed them to the study abroad experiences of immature students.  What he demonstrates, however, is the seventh deadly sin of armchair criticism:  stereotyping.

statue game
Photo by Megan Locatis

Cultural Education Imperative in Responses to Terrorist Attacks

Letter to the editor

Re: “Another Bombing, This Time in Pakistan” (editorial, March 28): Your editorial reminded me of my first childhood encounter with terrorism: September 11th. The memory of this terrorist attack shaped my understanding of terrorism as something that happened to major Western metropolises, like New York City. When attacks occurred in Paris and Brussels earlier this year, I–like doubtless many other Americans–felt I was reliving the experience of seeing a distant yet familiar city come to harm. However, when Beirut and Lahore were attacked this year, we, as Americans, were guilty of minimizing the pain felt by the Lebanese and Pakistanis.

One has to wonder: if Americans can relate to the French and the Belgians, what makes Pakistanis so different? The Times’s editorial quotes a spokesman for the Taliban who states that the attacks were meant, surprisingly, to target Christians enjoying an Easter outing. Since the majority of Americans identify as Christian, it would make sense for Americans to identify with Christian Pakistanis rather than Muslim Pakistanis, toward whom many Americans might feel hostile. Yet it seems that American indifference writes off all Middle Easterners as “Muslim terrorists,” raising the question: why do Americans so deeply fail to accept that Western and non-Western cultures share certain basic values? Though our geographic isolation and radical individualism may be to blame, this American urge to villainize the Middle East suggests that many Americans fail to imagine a Middle East outside the framework of terrorism and inside the greater context of humanity. Our reactions to recent attacks in distant places speak poorly for the state of cultural education in this country.