While Hamilton students are encouraged to look toward their professors for academic, professional, and personal guidance, professors do not always set the best standards for students to follow. Recently, professors on campus have breached professional boundaries by making below-the-belt comments about student journalism, student activism, and even about other professors, often while using their esteemed status as a shield from repercussions. On one hand, Hamilton’s tight-knit community makes it possible for students to build meaningful relationships with professors. On the other hand, word spreads fast and students have a right to hold professors accountable for their words and actions.
The Spectator
has made a point of encouraging those with differing viewpoints to speak out and has sought to provide a platform for a variety of voices in the form of opinion pieces and Letters to the Editor. As anyone with a cursory understanding of civil discourse and constructive debate will know, however, there is a difference between disagreeing with someone’s opinion and conflating an opinion with the character of that person.
Unfortunately, as you will see in this week’s Letter to the Editor, some of the College’s distinguished faculty are clearly failing to live up to our community’s standards for discourse in grappling with difficult issues. Frankly, it is outrageous that over the past two weeks, two tenured Hamilton professors would engage in a war of personality, rather than a competition of ideas. While we are opting to publish this week’s letter in the name of discourse and debate, we would be remiss to not address the level to which it fundamentally reflects the denigration of the campus ideals our professors are supposed to reflect.
We are, of course, referring to Professor Paquette’s response to Professor Cannavò’s piece on Paul Gottfried’s visit to campus, but this problem extends beyond these two professors. Namely, we recently heard from numerous students that professors have used their class time to criticize
The Spectator
and even specific members of the Editorial Board for perceived shortcomings in the coverage of Kurt Waldheim’s honorary degree and the all-campus survey on free speech. Professors maligned
The Spectator
for not taking a position on our campus’ own Waldheim affair; clearly, these professors are not aware of the unbiased nature of the News section.
We do not claim to be perfect journalists, writers, or investigators. We certainly deserve to be challenged directly on what we publish. However, we would welcome this challenge through the appropriate channels, rather than in hierarchical classroom settings where we have no way to defend our decisions. Overall, it is imperative that students, and the professors we look to for guidance, seek to do better.
Some may criticize our decision to publish Professor Paquette’s letter. It is our hope that, by publishing a piece we may find to be unconstructive and unbecoming of a Hamilton professor, community members are able to recognize the need to reevaluate how we interact with each other, especially when we disagree so fundamentally on so many issues. As evidenced by the repeated immaturity demonstrated by our professors — this reevaluation is clearly needed.
