OP-EDs "Notes from the desk" stirs up debate among students

Author: Alex Benepe and Kevin Redmon

I was severely disappointed by Andrew Throdahl's '09 critique of Angela Evancie in his article "Constructive and Unconstructive Methods of Change." It is rather shocking that a college student like Throdahl could be so condescending to a fellow student engaged in the arts. Ridiculous hyperbole such as using the word "Gestapo" to describe Evancie's art would have made the article laughable if it wasn't so terribly harsh and narrow-minded. Furthermore, his critique lacked perspective or research - or at least he didn't mention any.

Over the years, I have had several friends who worked in the dining halls. All of these students have told me the same thing: once they put on their uniforms, they might as well be invisible. Their friends walk by them without even noticing that they are there. I know this is true because I myself have almost missed them on a few occasions when I was standing just a few feet away loading up my plate with food.

These friends have also confided in me that it is true that members of Dining Services staff do feel very unrecognized and unnoticed. Most students do not even acknowledge them or say hello, even though they see them at the same time, at the same place, almost every single day for four years in a row. Therefore, regardless of Evancie's role in facilitating our connection to these photographs, there is a necessity for a show of this sort.

Throdahl also mentions that he was not present at the show. If he was, then he would have observed the fact that many of the men and women who appeared in the photos came to the opening and were cheerfully meeting many students they hadn't talked to before. This more casual interaction, rather than a client/server interaction that we often assume at the dining hall, allowed many students and staff members to open up to each other, and now these students and staff are probably greeting each other on a daily basis in the dining halls. Thus, not only was there a need for "recognition," but there was also a very direct, positive result from it.

Throdahl also failed to seek any statement from the artist, or the opinions of any other students involved with the work or who attended the event. All in all, his article was an unprofessional piece of journalism that comes off as venting rather than a calculated critique.

-Alex Benepe

Bravo! Mr. Throdahl has performed a pitch-perfect hatchet job on Ms. Evancie's recent photography installation, "Recognition." He need not fear, as he does in his April 23 editorial, that he "might be faulted for believing too piously in the redemptive power of art." My primary concern isn't even the absence of a discernible structure or thesis in his argument, much less his slavish devotion to absolution through art: It's his lack of integrity as a writer and editor.

Let me be clear: This is neither an issue of press freedom nor of censorship. Let Mr. Throdahl espouse whatever sharp-tongued criticism he wishes, and let this newspaper print it - but let him also be fair. His position as an editor and columnist does not absolve him of his responsibility to uphold the journalistic ethic.

The most disturbing part of Mr. Throdahl's piece was his willingness to ascribe thoughts, emotions and motivations to others from the comfort of his position behind a glowing computer screen. Unfortunately, those are the tools of the fiction writer - not the journalist. If Mr. Throdahl wished to know how Ms. Evancie approached the themes of her installation, perhaps he should have asked her. But to write that "most students, who both are and are not grateful for those that feed and clean up after them, feel guilty for not meditating on each 'poor staff member' that was photographed, and feel obligated to pace in disturbed silence from frame to frame" is patently disingenuous and lazy. He carelessly projects onto Ms. Evancie a middle school student's angst and Weltanschauung, and casts her peers at the art opening as hapless, simplistic Philistines.

For someone who contemptuously pins to others the adjectives "self-righteous" and "condescending," while simultaneously praising "empathy" as our most precious social value, I found Mr. Throdahl's tone to be dripping with the former but devoid of the latter.

Mr. Throdahl is a virtuosic pianist and sometimes astute music critic. I have seen him perform and read his work many times. It's a shame that his closing movement at Middlebury has been to thoroughly and publicly embarrass himself - and sully the pages of this newspaper - with his vitriol.

-Kevin Redmon