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No, I don’t mean getting lost going to class or stumbling into the Quad at 4am. In fact, I’m not talking about who you actually were as a first-year student at all. I’m talking about the spirit of the collective experience.
Yes, Soleimani was a terrible individual who deserved what he got, but killing Soleimani has put American troops at greater risk by moving the United States and Iran closer to war, dramatically destabilizing the region, and doing enormous damage to United States-Iranian relations.
We highlight these attacks on students and faculty to remind us all that these universities are being targeted precisely because they are institutions devoted to critical thinking and the exercise of reason.
While not all of us agree on every tactic the students may employ, we as faculty urge our colleagues and University administrators to hear them out, engage them constructively, and take much bolder action.
I am suggesting that everyone commit themselves to build a just and sustainable society, whether that’s through becoming a teacher, civil rights lawyer, therapist, an environmental engineer, a regenerative farmer, or any of the many jobs that are essential to creating a society founded on justice and sustainability.
Are we a community that, despite how much we may disagree, will at least show a classmate basic respect for putting their thoughts out onto a public forum? Or are we a community that will destroy and belittle someone over a mistake?
Legacy students, don’t hide your legacy status. Instead, acknowledge the privilege you hold in a faux-meritocratic system, speak out against it, and support others who share their struggles with the system.
A successful campus and democracy rely on healthy public debate. As a community, we must ensure that our discourse is grounded in challenging the perspectives of others and our own rather than cheaply personal shots.
Our University will never proactively address the climate crisis of its accord. And so it is time that that we — Penn students — show the University that it must change its habits and its investments whether it wants to or not.
This isn’t a radical idea, but a necessary demand — for nations and institutions that made their fortunes and secured their futures on the backs of the enslaved — to be held accountable.
As we embark on a new academic year, I encourage you to seize the enormous array of opportunities at Penn to get out there, to connect with others, and to engage every day.
Reisman’s logic, although echoing commonly circulated complaints, does not fully delve into the reasons the writing seminar exists in its current form.