In the Jewish tradition, the Sukkah is an impermanent booth or hut built and dwelt in during the week-long Jewish pilgrimage festival, Sukkot. The Sukkah is supposed to resemble the tent like dwellings in which the Jews lived as they wandered the desert for 40 years,and the sukkah’s impermanence reminds us of the temporary nature […]
Earlier this year, President Michael Roth penned an article that introduced a need for an “affirmative-action program for the full range of conservative ideas and traditions” (“The Opening of the Liberal Mind” ). It was disappointing not only to see an attempt to re-write history and the meanings of historically relevant, racially-unique terms, but also […]
A recently survey of 1,500 college students commissioned by the Brookings Institute provides serious concern over the generation currently walking the halls of Wesleyan. Among some of the disheartening results we find that most colleges students are unaware that the Constitution protects hate speech. Half of students think that shouting down speakers who advocate for […]
This letter is in response to the September 7th article in the Argus, “Wild Wes Sanctuary Struggles to Preserve Its Legacy”. I’m responding because that beautiful patch of untamed nature represents a great opportunity for Wes to open new worlds for itself and the world we serve. For the record, I went to Wesleyan for […]
Over the summer, Wesleyan made substantial changes to its Sexual Misconduct policies. While the administration has directed attention to certain major changes (e.g. the addition of an ombudsman, the elimination of hearings), the seemingly smaller changes to investigative procedures will prove to be equally impactful to the affected parties. Indeed, “the devil is in the […]
This year will be my second year as the House Manager of Middle House, formerly Buddhist House (or Buho). As HM, with a deep interest and practice in Buddhism and residential experience at Dai Bosatsu Zendo Zen Monastery, I have been working along with residents, friends, Reslife, and my Buddhist sangha to bring the house […]
On May fourth of this year, President Michael Roth wrote a brief article in the Argus heralding the glossy new RJ Julia bookstore. He expressed his excitement “for the opening of this great new cultural destination for the Wesleyan and greater Middletown communities and for the possibilities of even deeper connections between the two.” At […]
I was disappointed to see six Wesleyan professors (doctors Springer, Gruen, Karera, Bui, Boggs, and Weiss) among the 800-odd voices endorsing the silencing of a colleague at Rhodes University, Dr. Rebecca Tuvel, who published a paper on transracialism that displeased them. There was no malice in Dr. Tuvel’s paper, but apparently she had inadvertently used […]
In recent weeks, a group of students has voiced its concerns over the process of hiring employees for the new Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore. There has been much misinformation spread during this time, which we and RJ Julia management have attempted to clarify. One of the main concerns was the salary rate of employees of […]
Right now, over 1600 Palestinian political prisoners are entering their 19th day of the dignity hunger strike. They are demanding changes to the degrading conditions of Palestinian prisons, specifically improvements related to family visits, appropriate medical care, ending abusive conditions as well as stopping the use of solitary confinement, administrative detention, and imprisonment without charge […]