Collegiate Times

I would like to point out an irony that I believe the editorial staff of the Collegiate Times may have missed in their editorial of Nov. 10 (“’Mega’ World Regions Should Stay”). 

In this issue, there is a major feature article profiling a cello professor, Alan Weinstein. A portion of the article focuses on his teaching of creativity and aesthetic experience (a fairly large class at 1,200 each semester), where his goal is to reach students with no previous interest in the arts and make arts relevant to them by showing how various aspects of creativity can be highly relevant to their lives, both as students as well as later in their
careers.

In the editorial, however, the writers trash all other CLE courses, branding them “devoid of meaning” and targeting “music appreciation” in particular. Though they tout John Boyer’s “mega” class for “extract(ing) this much from students,” the only thing they could name that was “extracted” was cash, and given that donations to this (very worthwhile cause)
came with the thinly veiled “not so subtle hint” that more money would lead to more credit for the students, “extorted” might be a better word. 

While it is wonderful that Mr. Boyer was able to get a pair of movie stars to campus to introduce their film, and that he was able to raise money and awareness for a troubling issue, nothing in the entire editorial addressed any goals related to learning or intellectual growth of his students.

Perhaps classes and their teachers should be judged by the lasting intellectual growth of the students taking the class, rather than simply by their ability to entertain a large crowd or move students to generosity with a heartbreaking story.

Jessie Meltsner

VT Women's Center

A version of this article appeared in the Nov 15 issue of the Collegiate Times.