Notes from the Desk

Author: Kathryn Flagg

We've got a bad case of the "touchy-feelies" here at Middlebury College. Don't quite understand what I mean? Listen in on any Friday morning discussion section or impassioned debate over lunch at Proctor: the "I feel" has replaced the "I think" in our collective College jargon.

It's not that I have anything against feeling in the classroom, mind you. In my German classes, we talk about Sprachgefühle - literally, a "feel for the language," the ability to intuit the right case or an adjective ending or, perhaps, even the elusive gender of a noun. Auf Englisch, too, I am a sensitive soul. I may not fall on the "Sociology major" end of the spectrum, but as a tried and true fan of the Writing Program, I keep a journal and revel in writers' workshops - the very epitome of "touchy-feely" in the academic world. And so I admit that I am as guilty of over-feeling as many a Middlebury student. The statements I've prefaced with "I feel" in classroom discussions have worked their way into the dining hall, where "I feel" that another Proctor panini just isn't what I had in mind for lunch.

As the College works to implement the weekly convocations recommended by the Strategic Plan, I commend the community's efforts to strengthen academic forums on campus. But all of the academic programming under the sun will not banish the ubiquitous "I feel" - and even I, in all of my moleskine-toting, leaf-crunching, stop-and-smell-the-roses, touchy-feely glory, have had enough.

Is "I feel" another catchphrase that we fall back on without, for lack of a better word, thinking? Or is this indicative of a larger problem? Is it really so dangerous to commit, every once in awhile, to thinking? "I feel" seems, more often than not, a way of cushioning the blow of our tentative intellectual endeavors - of softening edges, or tiptoeing around the possibility of being - heaven forbid - wrong.

Of this, at least, I am certain: I feel it's time for "I think" to make its comeback.