Letters to the Editor

Author: [no author name found]

To the Editor:

Collegeiate should be spelled "collegiate." Perhaps alcohol was being consumed at the time the editorial was written.

It seems the generation preceding those on the Editorial Board has saddled your generation with enough issues of significance, that lowering the drinking age would not warrant a lead editorial. Then again, perhaps the more one thinks about the issues your generation has been saddled with, the more one needs a good stiff drink. International turmoil, global terrorism, exhaustion of cheap natural resources, as well as the burden of caring for the large population of aging baby boomers (that's us), certainly could lead one to drink.

In our day, issues focused on war and peace, and civil liberties. That doesn't mean the alcohol didn't flow, or other mind altering substances weren't ever present; but at least they and other priorities were kept in context and priorities weren't confused.

As parents, we don't really care if some recreational drinking occurs at age 19 versus 21 (as long as you aren't driving!). But we sure hope you all are keeping your priorities in order. We've made a real mess of the world and are counting on you to set things straight!

Jerry Salkowe
Class of 2007 Parent
Greenwich, NY


To the Editor:

In response to Chandler Koglmeier's Op-Ed on the History Department's ban on Wikipedia: I'm guessing my History colleagues weren't afraid of losing power to the intellectual proletariat. Perhaps they were concerned for students who, like Koglmeier, have trouble distinguishing facts from opinions. Koglmeier describes the ban as an attack on "general commentary" and "the opinions of the general public," but Wikipedia doesn't purport to be a chat room for the expression of "views." It claims to be a depository of facts, and the accuracy of factual information is not simply a matter of popular opinion.

For example, it is legal fact that Professor Morsman spells her last name with one "o," and even if Koglmeier can find a thousand people to spell her name the way he insisted on penning it -"Moorsman"- that doesn't alter the fact that they'd be spelling her name wrong.

Facts can be right or wrong, and unfortunately none of the "quality control" mechanisms by which scholarship is normally evaluated exists for a site like Wikipedia. Whether the best response to the risks is simply to hold students accountable for any inaccuracies or to ban the use of Wikipedia altogether, I'm still not sure. But only in politics is "acceptance a reality in itself" and democracy a (nearly) unambiguous virtue.

In the realm of academic research, scholars owe it to themselves and their disciplines to get the facts right, and there are more reliable ways to do that than by clicking on your Wikipedia bookmark.

Professor James Calvin Davis
Department of Religion
Middlebury, VT