> > > > Hi.
> > > > I was wondering if anyone knows anything about Elmira College. I've heard its a rather dumpy school, but the brochure I got in the mail makes it look great.
> > > > Timmy
> > >
> > > Purple and gold could never look dumpy. Darien has the right idea, where else can you triple major in such style, be an escort and be dating a terrific strawberry blonde.
> >
> > Purple and Gold may not look dumpy, but you can get real sick of it real quick. Seriously though the school is nice, I like it. The underground war between administration and faculty (which features the students as the inocent bystanders) can get annoying though. There are a lot of great clubs, including two new ones this year (sking and sci-fi/fantasy). You should give it a look see, but keep you BS detector running on the official tour.
> >
> > an EC infor"oh no, the EC thought police are at my door"mant
>
> It's not a dumpy school, it's a school that refuses to take into account student or faculty viewpoints, where the administration makes curricular decisions instead of the faculty, where freshmen are required to attend tons of performing arts events where attendance is taken and quality is not the issue, do hours of community service, attend uneducational saturday morning classes, do their work-study, go to regular class, made to live on campus sometimes in very tiny rooms, can't find parking, and where more than half of the students leave!
> It's the whole attitude around here that the administration knows what's best, and that students and faculty opinions just don't count. So I really wouldn't recommend coming here... and oh yeah, if you're a veteran, married, or homosexual, the college reserves the right to discriminate against you. It's said that.
> I'm a current student at EC who is no longer proud to have come here.

Then, not to be harsh, but perhaps you should leave. The most significant problem with this school is the attitude of the student body. Frankly, it's fashionable to hate nowadays. It's popular to find problems with everything and to fight them until you die - or at least until you've made yourself absolutely miserble beating your head against them. And that's the predominant attidude of the students on this campus.

Take, for example, this obscene "bill of rights" that we'll be killing in senate tomorrow. It spends quite some time complaining about how opressive the administration is, and then demands freedom of speech. Of course, in the next clause, it denies us that very same freedom. To quote:

"Article III: Free Speech. A. Every student possess [sic] the right to speak freely and openly about any subject, issue or grievance without the fear of censorship or retribution by any member of the administration, faculty, staff or student body."

"Article II: Non-Discrimination and Harassment. A. ... NO individual, group of individuals, or institution shall in any way show predjudice to or discriminate against any person or group of persons..."

How contradictory do you think we should be? I talked to one of the people who was responsible for this, and mentioned the fact that Article II clearly denies the freedom of speech allowed us in Article III, and his response was "we believe that people have the right to free speech as long as they aren't hurting anyone." Err... what? That isn't free speech. That's called opression.

If you recall, this country was founded by people who didn't want to be told what to think and what to say. They demanded the right to hold beliefs and to say things that other people found offensive. When the constitution of the United States of America refers to "freedom of speech," what it's referring to is the right of people - the inalienable, fundamental human right - to speak one's mind, regardless of what other people think of it. Now, don't get me wrong; the constitution's free speech clause does *not* protect anyone from looking like an ass because he's saying stupid things. But it allows him to say those things and look like an ass. And it allows other people to get upset at him, paradoxically.

First of all, a Bill of Rights does *not* exist to deny rights to people - this glorified obscenity takes as its purpose exactly that. Secondly, freedom of speech as long as you say the right things is not freedom of speech at all. It's censorship. And it's disgusting.

And that's the biggest problem wiht Elmira College - so many of the students are rabidly (not to mention stupidly) opposed to the administration and everything it does just on principle - so much so that they'd propose laws that sign away their freedom just to "spite the man." EC students, on average, need to grow up and get over themselves. And anyone who's "no longer proud to have come here" should just leave instead of trying to ruin it for everyone else, too.