The Collegian Weekly The opinion of The Collegian editorial staff
Welcome to the Hillsdale College Wax Museum
Issue date: 11/6/08 Section: Focus
In April, Thomas Jefferson will join Hillsdale College's collection of Western icons lining its forthcoming Liberty Walk, at a cost of $250,000. Abraham Lincoln comes in May. The Collegian agrees we should acknowledge great heroes who have bettered our world and whose writings we study in class, but we question how administrators and donors have chosen to help us remember: without student input.
At essence, Hillsdale is not about statues or donors. At its core, it is about kids who leave high school, come here for a real education and, in the process, grow up. Last week, a film crew taped students for college promotional material. Their cameras captured reality - students, not statues, make Hillsdale College.
The best monuments on campus reflect the people here. Seniors encourage underclassmen with messages on the blue sidewalk every spring.
The amphitheater, commemorating last year's graduates and enjoyed on sunny afternoons for classes and after dark for music and story-telling, sprang from a few students. And we appreciated when administrators finally moved to lay cement where people actually walked, rather than insisting we meander along crescent paths. (Really, with our overpacked schedules, who here has time to walk in anything but straight lines anyway?)
But when it comes to the bronze figurines forming across our frisbee-ridden Quad, we think the college has transgressed its own Honor Code. When President Larry Arnn spoke at the unveiling of Margaret Thatcher's statue last spring, he praised her ability to pair courage with prudence and encouraged his audience to examine "the most elevated things in an urgent spirit."
We have signed the Honor Code and its charge to live under self-governance. College officials often welcome student participation in campus' future. Saga, Inc., welcomes meal input; exit surveys give administrators insight into problems; professors must request evaluations at least once a semester and Student Federation has become an active part of decision-making.
But we should apply those virtues to campus aesthetics, too. Tradition and remembering those gone before is important, but we must do it in a way that makes sense to us who remember.
Margaret Thatcher deserves respect. She helped end the Cold War and uphold limited government. Jefferson and Lincoln demand our reverence also. Thatcher's statue, though, has mainly caused irreverent Facebook photos, not serious reflection.
Clearly, administrators and donors intend good: to beautify campus, and remind students and visitors of our intellectual heritage. A scholarship will attend each statue, and that's a real legacy. But these monuments would mean more and fit the college better if their placement, design and subjects included student suggestions.
Let's raise the memorials, but in such a way that students participate in, understand and truly appreciate.
At essence, Hillsdale is not about statues or donors. At its core, it is about kids who leave high school, come here for a real education and, in the process, grow up. Last week, a film crew taped students for college promotional material. Their cameras captured reality - students, not statues, make Hillsdale College.
The best monuments on campus reflect the people here. Seniors encourage underclassmen with messages on the blue sidewalk every spring.
The amphitheater, commemorating last year's graduates and enjoyed on sunny afternoons for classes and after dark for music and story-telling, sprang from a few students. And we appreciated when administrators finally moved to lay cement where people actually walked, rather than insisting we meander along crescent paths. (Really, with our overpacked schedules, who here has time to walk in anything but straight lines anyway?)
But when it comes to the bronze figurines forming across our frisbee-ridden Quad, we think the college has transgressed its own Honor Code. When President Larry Arnn spoke at the unveiling of Margaret Thatcher's statue last spring, he praised her ability to pair courage with prudence and encouraged his audience to examine "the most elevated things in an urgent spirit."
We have signed the Honor Code and its charge to live under self-governance. College officials often welcome student participation in campus' future. Saga, Inc., welcomes meal input; exit surveys give administrators insight into problems; professors must request evaluations at least once a semester and Student Federation has become an active part of decision-making.
But we should apply those virtues to campus aesthetics, too. Tradition and remembering those gone before is important, but we must do it in a way that makes sense to us who remember.
Margaret Thatcher deserves respect. She helped end the Cold War and uphold limited government. Jefferson and Lincoln demand our reverence also. Thatcher's statue, though, has mainly caused irreverent Facebook photos, not serious reflection.
Clearly, administrators and donors intend good: to beautify campus, and remind students and visitors of our intellectual heritage. A scholarship will attend each statue, and that's a real legacy. But these monuments would mean more and fit the college better if their placement, design and subjects included student suggestions.
Let's raise the memorials, but in such a way that students participate in, understand and truly appreciate.
Be the first to comment on this story