Dear Wesleyan,
Chalking is kind of a pain. I ruined the knees of my favorite pair of jeans by chalking too much. I was thrilled when I heard that new students are chalking, but I saw the all-campus email and linked letter that Dean Mike sent out, and wanted to give a different history.
I also wanted to direct you all to documents from the 2002-2003 academic year during first the “moratorium” and later the “ban” on chalking. I created http://www.wesleyan.edu/hermes/chalking to archive media about chalking, a list of some of the chalkings, and documents coming both from the administration and the student body about the issue. I created the site in the summer of 2003, but have barely updated it since then, so look at it as an archive rather than a poorly-updated site, please. If anyone with html and css knowledge, as well as a commitment to supporting student voices, would like to maintain the site, please contact me at zstrassburger@wesleyan.edu
As a bit of personal history, chalking was incredibly important to my Wesleyan experience, and helped me to find and feel community on campus. When chalkings were around*, the campus was much more social. People stopped and read the chalkings, and talked to each other (strangers) about them on the sidewalk. People found out about events before they happened. I’ve had professors tell me that while they don’t bother to read the Argus, chalking helped them keep a tab on student life.
Chalking reaches people who aren’t in your “in-group,” students outside of listserves, endless flyering, and your facebook friends. What an amazing opportunity for communication with people who aren’t like you, whether while you’re out chalking, discussing chalkings when you see them and afterward, and through the pages of the Argus and other campus publications that always perk up with chalking-related commentary. Chalk allows minorities on campus to be heard, from queer students to the Christian Fellowship (big chalkers in 2002-2003, I don’t know about now) even when the groups might not have the money or resources to bring in big-name speakers.
Yes, there can be hate-filled chalkings, the same as there are hate-filled e-mails, hate-filled graffiti messages, and hate-filled Wespeaks. Hate-filled chalkings should receive the same response. Focusing on a response to hate and how to change those feelings would be much more productive than silencing all of a speech form because it contains some messages of which some people disapprove. I do not support a speech code as a general idea, but Wesleyan already has one.
Furthermore, there is a difference between a sexually explicit chalking and a hate-filled chalking. “I like anal sex” and “I like the bush between hir legs, not in the Oval Office” are about claiming political space and recognizing that my identity as queer is connected to sex. I have also been involved in many chalkings that included “Welcome to Wes!” “Wes [heart]s prefrosh,” and “Love your local library,” as well as countless announcements about group meetings or events. I encourage those who are against the sexually explicit chalkings at the beginning of this paragraph to ask themselves how, in what ways, and why these chalkings feel threatening to you. What would you chalk in response? How can we create a conversation about that together?
As Wesleyan chooses a new president, it is important to listen to student voices in as many forms as we can express them. Come on, Wes. Make me sad I’m not there to chalk with you. Maybe I’ll even donate to a chalk fund if the alumni office ever calls asking for that.
Love,
Zach Strassburger’06
*I don’t actually remember how long chalkings have been around, but Megan Brown ’04 did an honors thesis for I think COL about the history of chalking at Wes. Check it out at Olin!
Leave a Reply