Letters & Submissions
Letters to the editor are always welcome. Submissions
must include your name, contact information and class
standing. Letters from faculty and staff and members of the
community are also accepted. The Pendulum reserves the right
to edit obscene or potentially libelous material. Lengthy
letters or columns may have to be trimmed to fit.
All submissions become the property of The Pendulum and
will not be returned. Send submissions to
pendulum@elon.edu.
To The Editor:
As a Hurricane Katrina survivor from Bay St. Louis, Miss., I
felt compelled to write to you as I reflect on the past
months. Elon University has made such a positive impression
on our church, Our Lady of the Gulf, and personally, on my
family.
My first contact with the wonderful and generous spirit of
your students was when they volunteered last October in our
community.
You will never know how much it meant to me when the Elon
van rolled into my yard to help with the cleanup
effort. As I was at one of my lowest points since the
storm, your volunteers brought such joy and hope.
Your editor, Nathan Rode, needs to be commended for a
wonderful article he wrote for The Pendulum about my family
and the hurricane's effect on us. Months have passed, but
I must tell you that Nathan is not only an excellent
reporter—he is truly an exceptional young man.
While making a second trip to the coast to help in the
relief effort, he made a special trip to my home to check on
us. He wanted to see our progress and give more support. What
an amazing gift!
Thanks so much to all of the students at Elon that are
continuing to support our Gulf Coast. It will take a long
time to bring our community back to what it once was, but
with the help of caring individuals like you, it will happen.
- Janet Freeman
Katrina Victim
To The Editor:
Instead of talking about the ethical principles that
constitute his journalistic philosophy, Ben Bradlee decided
to reminisce about famous people he knows.
Entertaining? Sure. Funny? Of course. Informative? Not in
the slightest.
Obviously impressed with himself, Bradlee offered
uncritical, often asinine observations about American
political figures (Ronald Reagan was "a perfect
President")?
To make matters worse, Bradlee effectively dismissed any
implication that the press has failed to hold the Bush
administration accountable.
This is to be expected, however. After all, The Washington
Post, like many other American newspapers, assured us all in
2002 and 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and
that war was needed.
If Bradlee had admitted that the media had not done its job,
he would have had to admit that his paper bought President
Bush's story on Iraq.
I guess it's easier to have a few laughs about Laura
Bush.
- Daniel Shutt '09
To The Editor:
Cheers to Elon for bringing in another big catch of smart
kids to provide a little SAT leverage to their Newsweek
standings. Ah yes, the proverbial Fellows' weekend, a
time when Elon realizes its standard 'beautiful campus,
nice people' brand name isn't quite good enough, and
therefore offers a luxury product called premium Elon to its
more polished clientele.
The Fellows' program, Honors Pavilion and other premium
Elon products are upon deeper reflection nothing more than
Elon's greatest weakness masquerading as one of its
proudest strengths. Do other top-tier liberal arts
institutions have to throw money, titles and perks at
eighteen-year-old high school kids who have never even
stepped foot inside a college classroom to entice their
enrollment?
While Elon's Fellows' program is a brilliant
marketing campaign, on the whole such programs sacrifice
academic integrity by putting freshmen on a pedestal instead
of keeping them humble as they face the road ahead and also
contribute a lower profit margin per student to Elon's
bottom line.
When the administration releases its perennial 'look how
much smarter our incoming Fellows and students are than this
year's crop' press release, let's all have a good
chuckle at the irony of an administration celebrating the
fact that they are still second-rate.
Want to rid yourself of second-rate status, Elon? Here is my
unedited to do list:
Before you invest in another multimillion dollar facility,
please write the term 'substance over form' one
thousand times on the chalk board. In the past, failure
to adhere to this doctrine has led you to build a beautiful
football stadium and not find a half-decent football coach to
man the team, a multiplex eating facility called Varsity that
nobody goes to because the food is absolutely horrendous and
a law school in Greensboro that will become a
'leadership' law school; because logically, so many
aspiring, competent young leaders really want to spend their
twenties in Greensboro.
By the way, stop thinking you're fooling anybody by
putting the word 'leadership' in front of every
student organization. I'm surprised I haven't seen a
course offered yet called 'Leadership Calculus II' or
'Leadership Intermediate Microeconomics.'
Top-tier institutions don't mislead their students into
thinking that just because they are annoyingly extroverted
they will go on to become Fortune 500 CEOs.
When I graduate from this place in a few months, go out into
the work world, and tell people I attended Elon University,
do I really want people to say, "Wow, you attended the
number one school of student engagement? That's really
cute!" Not at all, and neither does anybody else
who has actually had a real job interview on this
campus. The real world doesn't care about how hot
Elon is or about any of its other cookie-cutter accolades;
they care about how well your degree holds merit as a
standard of accomplishment. Stop advertising nonsense
and find me a job outside of North Carolina.
Top-tier institutions don't set up croquet on the lawn
to the tune of classical music like some sort of rehearsed
marketing ploy when parents and prospective students pay a
visit. Your job is to make sure I can afford an ill country
club in ten years, not to pretend to be one now.
Who am I to tell you to change your ways? Well, one of your
Fellows, of course.
-Brendan Reese '06
Jefferson Pilot Business Fellow
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