You Have Mail
A longtime hobby horse of EphBlog is the College’s refusal to be more open in its public communication. E-mails to the entire community, or large subsections of it, ought to be archived and available to all. Until that happy day, EphBlog will provide some highlights. Thanks to an anonymous reader, below are the latest from College Council.
Photo ID, #22
Is it called beach volleyball if it’s only on a fake beach?
File Sharing 101
It was with some eagerness that I recently examined an opinions piece in the Record entitled “Ethics 101″ by Noah Susskind ‘07. Susskind is planning to major in Philosophy, which would hopefully make his commentary on ethics especially appropriate. My interest, of course, was that his piece dealt with file-sharing on campus.
He begins by stating the facts and offering a solution:
The average Williams student downloads songs without paying for them. Peer-to-peer file-sharing and downloading copyrighted works (without the permission of the copyright holders) is illegal (MGM et al. v. Grokster et al.) But students do it anyway. More alarming, perhaps, is that they don’t stop to consider the ethics of what they are doing.
Clearly, he’s alarmed by the lack of thought that most Ephs display through their usage of copyrighted materials. So where is his solution again?
Four Letter Word
What is the stupidest, most out of touch statement by a senior faculty member to be published in the Record in the last year? Good question! Given all the misrepresentations concerning anchor housing, the competition is a tough one. But I am going with this.
To bring discussion [on racial incidents] to a more public arena, Schapiro and Roseman are hosting an open forum in Griffin at 8:30 p.m. tonight. Roseman said she felt that WSO blogs are ultimately limited in lasting value, despite the good content they sometimes contain. “They’re not really a dialogue,” she said. “They always degenerate over time.”
Pathetic. Roseman was also reported to refer to “blog” as a “four letter word” — i.e., something that she thought was not just useless but positively harmful. Rant follows.
Does David Kane ‘88 Have a Soul?
Lest this title confuse you, M Esa Seegulam started a thread on the WSO boards entitled “6 Reasons Why I Think David Kane Has no Soul”. I didn’t intend to post my reply on Ephblog, but given the fact that I took excessive amounts of time to write it (instead of working on my Bayesian Statistics problem set), I’d like to see something come of it.
Click to read my actual response on WSO.
All Ephs Now
Jim Kolesar was kind enough to provide this background on Williams’s generous offer of help to Xavier. [Minor editing, comments and links added by me.]
Not Rape
Before it disappears from the web forever, it is worthwhile to review the Boston Globe article that publicized the most famous alleged sexual assault at Williams in the last 15 years. Previous coverage here. Comments:
1) I continue to believe that the College could do much more to decrease the (low) rate of sexual assault on campus. Unsurprisingly, my recommendation is unlike anything you would read elsewhere. Make every male student at Williams vividly aware of the Foster case by showing him a picture of Foster at his arraignment, perhaps even having the first years try on a pair of handcuffs. The lesson that every male Eph should have drilled deep into his bones is that having sex with a female Eph is a risk unless you are 100% certain that she is a full and eager participant. A credible accusation of rape — an accusation that will turn your life upside down for a decade or more even if you are (found) innocent — requires only a credible accuser. And all Eph women are credible. Foster didn’t think that it could happen to him. Foster was wrong. Don’t make the same mistake he did. If if Foster is not a rapist, he is most certainly not a gentleman. The punishment for caddish behavior at Williams is much higher than you think it is. Don’t be a cad.
2) Gensheimer graduated last spring and Foster is in his senior year. This has been a painful topic to discuss while they were current students. By next fall, it may be easier for the rest of us to get some perspective.
3) Is the transcript for the trial available somewhere? From the excerpts that we have seen, I suspect that it would make for compelling reading.
Article below:
Comment Frenzy
No one knows how to create a blog comment frenzy better than Professor Marc Lynch.
I really shouldn’t be this busy. I just shouldn’t. Discussion of how Arabs are talking about Katrina, or of the Arab media coverage of the Oil for Food Report – two items I had hoped to write today – will just have to wait, I’m afraid.
In the meantime, feel free to weigh in on this question of urgent, burning concern in the Aardvark household: based on your own memory or perceptions – not on a Google search or whatever – do you think that Big Bird is a boy or a girl?
Most of his commentators get it right.
Whiny Williams
“Pizza Jen” is not impressed with Williams students.
Located in the lower right corner of page three [of the Record], I spotted an article written by a college senior who had stayed at Williams over the summer to work as a psychology research assistant. I was captivated by the title. By the end of the article I wanted to slap the insepid debutante into the reality of the less fortunate.
…
First of all, let’s talk about lifestyle sacrifices. A lifestyle sacrifice is having to give up the second car your family needs because you can no longer afford the payments. A lifestyle sacrifice is having to tell a five-year-old she can’t have the yogurt drinks she wants because the family budget has been stretched to the limit due to rising gas prices and stagnent wages. A lifestyle sacrifice is not about the new enclosed parking garage you could have parked your car in, but weren’t allowed to.
Second, unless you live in a mansion, most of the “disparate housing” at Williams is ten-times better than affordable housing in North Adams. And I think I can find a few people who can put to shame her whine about inadequate transportation. Has she tried using the B-Bus. I’m sure she hasn’t, and I’m sure the people who do could give her an earful about being late to work because public transit doesn’t run on time.
I guess when your part of a two-parent family, where both parents work forty hours and you can’t afford to move your children out of subsidized housing, you earn the right to be cynical about the lifestyle sacrifices being made by the wealthy and pampered elitest children of America.
I hope she experiences real life, like the rest of us, as opposed to being the stereo-typical silver spoon trustfund baby that I’m sure she either is, or is striving to be. Somehow, I just don’t see it happening.
Read the whole thing. Alas, I can’t find the article she references on-line, although this is one by the named author. Comments:
1) Great stuff!
2) It is interesting to see how locals, especially locals with less money, perceive Williams students. I suspect that similar opinions have been voiced for over 200 years.
3) I would bet a fair amount of money that Marita Campos-Melady ‘06 is not a debutante — not that I am stereotyping women from Santa Fe or anything. But how daring is she? A daring Eph would invite Pizza Jen for coffee. Excellent conversation would be inevitable.
Helping Hand?
One way that the College is helping out in the aftermath of Katrina is to accept students from effected schools. As long as those students are of similar academic talent to current Ephs, this is a win-win all around. The obvious match would be with students from Tulane, at least one of whom is attending Williams for the fall.
But the College is going further. Several students from Xavier University are already on campus and more may be on the way.
We are happy to report that special new members of our community began arriving today — five pre-medical students from Xavier University of Louisiana. Another arrives Thursday; still another has expressed interest. Through them, and through the University, Williams is reaching out to other Xavier pre-meds who may be able to join us for the fall. A similar group arrives soon at Amherst, which also is seeking more such students.
We’re still in the process of determining these students’ academic needs, but it looks at this point like those in Williamstown will largely take regular Williams courses. They’ll live in previously empty dorm rooms and be available to take full part in campus life.
A good idea?
The bottom 25th percentile of SAT scores at Williams is around 665. The 75th percentile at Xavier is 555. But given that only 50% of students at Xavier report their test scores, this 555 number is probably closer to the 90th percentile if not higher. In other words, even if the students that Williams accepted from Xavier are in the top 10% of the class there — there’s no word on how Williams selected which students would be invited to attend — we would still have a problem. The SATs of students at Williams do not go down very far below the 25th percentile.
In other words, there is almost certainly a dramatic mismatch between Williams students and the Xavier students who have joined them for the fall. Almost all the Xavier students probably fall in the bottom 5%, if not lower, of the Williams population.
I think that this has trouble written all over it. There is a reason that Williams rarely accepts students with below 1200 SATs. Such students have a lot of trouble at a place like Williams.
Are Morty and the rest of the folks that run Williams really helping out those Xavier students by putting them in a Chemistry class with a bunch of Ephs who are almost all much smarter than they are? Or are they mostly making themselves feel better by doing something, anything, in the face of such a calamity? Time will tell.
Addedum: Note that I could be wrong about these numbers. Perhaps Williams only offered positions to the half dozen Xavier students with 1400 combined SATs. I doubt it. I also suspect that Williams administrators have a sense about the mismatch; see the phrase “academic needs” in the quotation above. On the bright side, putting the Xavier students in a Williams science class will help out the curve for everyone else . . .
Insta-Eph
Why did EphBlog have a spike of readers yesterday evening and today? Why are there some, uh, unusual comments in this thread? Turns out that Lowell’s post led to EphBlog’s first ever Instalanche. The number of visits by new readers is, however, much less than it would normally be for such an event because we were only linked to in the 3rd update to the original post.
On the one hand, it is sort of fun to be noticed by the big fish of the blogosphere. On the other hand, the comments from strangers don’t seem to add much to the discussion. I would rather have EphBlog read by the thousand most engaged Ephs than by a hundred thousand not-so-interesting non-Ephs.
Indelibly Eph
Although there are many fine blogs in our ever expanding Eph Blogroll, none are better named than “Indeliby Eph” by Kenny Yim ‘09. Perhaps EphBlog could use his opening entry as a motto of sorts.
This is the start of something good, isn’t it?
The Weblog – a necessary feature of the 21st century landscape. So, of course, I had to conform. As much as I resisted the first few years of its popularity, I yielded to temptation. The attic of my mind is becoming a little too cluttered.
I have yet to fully flush out the ultimate purpose (need there be one?) for this blog. It isn’t to network, as is the general pasttime for my friends (if you happen to be one, welcome and congratulations on finding the white rabbit!), or to unload adolescent angst on to a mindless piece of hardware. Perhaps, I’ll get a date out of this.
So, welcome friends, voyeurs and passing acquaintances. An Odyssey to rival Odysseus’ awaits us both.
Indeed it does — for all of us are indeliby Eph.
Gender Disparities in Higher Education and Incentive Effects
There has been quite a lot of talk in the Blogosphere of late about the overall gender disparity in higher education, with approximately 135 women in college for every 100 men overall. Despite the claims of the anti-Summers crowd, men still have an overwhelming majority in the G-heavy fields comprising computer science, math, all sorts of engineering, and the math-heavy sciences of Chemistry and Physics.
It might surprise some of you to discover that I am finding it quite difficult to get as worked up about this percentile disparity as I do about other areas in which men are discriminated against. For instance, I am a staunch opponent of the perverse Clintonian reinterpretation of Title IX that requires sports participation mirroring the gender ratio of the school to avoid gender discrimination claims. I find the argument “women on average earn less than men, therefore there’s systematic widespread discrimination in the workforce” to be both socially ignorant and logically flawed at best (if there is sufficient demand, I’d be happy to provide my reasoning in another post). I also am adamantly opposed to what Christina Hoff Summers called “The War Against Boys” — the very real discrimination against males in pre-college education. While this discrimination may discourage men from going to college in the first place, there is no way that it can explain the entire sex disparity in higher education. In fact, I would be quite surprised if this early discrimination were more than 25% of the cause of the disparity.
When presented with a numerical or percentage disparity, I generally have two sets of thoughts:
(1) Conditional probability and Bayes’ Theorem — Mere disparities don’t tell us anything. What is the relevant group and what is the relevant population? Figure out if there is still a disparity after comparing.
(2) People respond to incentives — What are the incentives elsewhere that might fully explain or sharply mitigate the perceived disparity?
U2
In the category of news to make fellow Eph Blogger Mike Needham ‘04 happy, we have:
Williams College will be offering in its winter term a poli-sci cource called “The Gospel According to U2” (PSCI 11.) This may be the first course on the band’s theological significance at a non-Christian institution.
Perhaps Professor Paul will invite Mike up as a guest lecturer . . .
Asian URMs
Although College Confidential is a marvelous source of information, it is often totally wrong.
Q: Do asian applicants have an slight advantage or a disadvantage in getting admitted? Or neither?
A: Asians are considered a URM at Williams. It’ll help you, though probably not as much as being African-American or Latino.
Uh, no. For admissions purposes, Asians are not URMs at Williams. After all, they are 10% of Williams, double their fraction of the general population. The average SAT and/or high school record of Asian students at Williams is almost certainly higher than those of white students. Now, part of that is that many more white students benefit from athletic tips and legacy status, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the same were true for non-tips, non-legacies.
Photo ID, #21
What is this picture of, and where was it taken from?
Sports Illustrated Tailgate Nation
Alec Morrison contacted me in regards to this and I told him that I would repost the content here. If you have any suggestions for him, please contact him directly:
I work in the editorial projects department at Sports Illustrated, and I found your name and email info on EphBlog.com. My group creates a section in the magazine called “Tailgate Nation” — we just published it for the first time in last week’s issue (dated 9/19/05). We’re now working on TN 2006, trying to figure out what football games we might cover this fall.
I’m writing you because I’m wondering if you could help me identify some serious tailgaters. They could be students or alums, or even just townies who love the Ephs. We’re interested in groups who have a strong tradition of tailgating, in terms of how they set up, what food they fix, how they dress, etc. They could be hardcore fans with painted cars and so forth, or just a group that has a really good story. I figured if you or someone at the site could post this info on the website, people could contact me directly if they had recommendations, or wanted to recommend themselves.
I know the tailgate policy is fairly restrictive as of this year, at least at the football field and on campus. So I’m also wondering whether anybody comes into town a night or two before the game and sets up off-campus. Granted, it’s less likely at a Div. III school than at, say, an SEC powerhouse, but then again, this is a big game. So if there’s anyone out there who organizes a caravan, or travels in RVs, comes from far away, or — maybe even better — is part of a Williams-Amherst coupling, I’d love to hear about them.
In the next couple of weeks, I’m hoping to identify a group we could potentially talk to and photograph for the game. If you’re willing, could you post this request? Folks are welcome to email me at alec_morrison@timeinc.com with any information they’d care to share. And if you want to email or give me a call for more details, please do so. My office line is 212 522-6390, and I’m usually around till 6 each night.
Last, if you have any recommendations for other groups, people or message boards I should contact, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks for your time, Eric. Hope to hear from you soon.
Best regards,
Alec
Alec Morrison
Editorial Projects Writer
Sports Illustrated
1271 Avenue of the Americas, Rm 33-325
New York, NY 10020-1300
(212) 522-6390
(212) 522-0393 fax
alec_morrison@timeinc.com
Leave It to Beaver Beckons
A September 20th article in The New York Times entitled, “Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood,” notes that:
At Yale and other top colleges, women are being groomed to take their place in an ever more diverse professional elite. It is almost taken for granted that, just as they make up half the students at these institutions, they will move into leadership roles on an equal basis with their male classmates.There is just one problem with this scenario: many of these women say that is not what they want.
Many women at the nation’s most elite colleges say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising children. Though some of these students are not planning to have children and some hope to have a family and work full time, many others, like Ms. Liu, say they will happily play a traditional female role, with motherhood their main commitment.
Having watched their mothers struggle to balance home and career, as a History professor at Yale puts it, “The women today are, in effect, turning realistic.”
An interesting side effect of this is that, for such elite colleges, including Williams, Alumni Fund and capital gifts may lessen. With fewer investment bankers, dot.com executives, lawyers, and physicians in the alumni mix, the number of $2,000, $10,000, and $1 million gifts will probably decrease. Williams has an interesting gift profile — it’s a rhomboid or cut off pyramid shape. We have very few alums who give $10s of millions of dollars (unlike Harvard, for example), but have a healthy group who give $50,000 here and $2,000,000 there. If that section of givers starts to shrink, the bottom of the pyramid — those who give $25 and $250 — will no doubt be asked to give more.
This year’s goal for the Alumni Fund is $9.6 million — a pretty hefty sum for a school with 23,000 alumni. So if you’re in the below $1,000 group, don’t be surprised if you’re asked to give a bit more in the coming years….
An Eph Living Room
One of the more banal cliches about the forthcoming Paresky Hall is that it will provide a “living room” for Williams, a place where Ephs can meet and congregate, talk and discuss. Whatever your opinion on the death of Baxter and the new construction, this notion of a living room is gibberish. The common areas in Paresky will function just as the common areas in Baxter did, as a place where many people pass through and hang out. But it will not be a place where people meet each other for the first time or where strangers engage in meaningful conversation.
But wouldn’t it be nice if Williams had such a place? Since WSO is meeting for the first time tonight, now is a good time to ask them to build a real living room. To some extent, the WSO blogs have served this purpose very well for the last few years. Blogs have hosted some amzing conversations, often between Ephs who would not have had a chance to meet/talk much in the real world. At times, these conversations have even included alumni and faculty. Best of all, the rest of us have been invited to listen in, to learn from what other people think and feel and say.
But more could be done. EphBlog tries to do a bit of this, of course. We have even played with forums in the past. Yet there are limits to the what we can do technically.
Moreover, I can’t even fully articulate what a (virtual) Eph living room would look like. It would have aspects of the blogs, so that people can write what they want. It would have aspects of a forum, so that discussion were easy to participate in and follow. It would allow for and encourage all sorts of Ephs — students, alumni, faculty, staff, town residents — to take part.
And it would do all of this in a cool, new, different way than has ever been done before, a way that I can’t even describe, much less implement. If EphBlog has demonstrated anything over the last few years, it is that there is a demand for a virtual community among the Ephs, a place where we can talk and argue amongst ourselves. If WSO builds it, then we will come.
[By the way, undergraduates really ought to consider joining WSO even if they aren't experienced coders. The more experienced you are with any/all aspects of computers, the better off you will be after Williams. And, besides, WSO rocks!]
Tyng == Merit Scholarship
I am endlessly annoyed by the College’s claim that the Tyng is not a “merit” scholarship, that all the College is doing is meeting someone’s “demonstrated need” but with a nice, pretty bow on top. See here and here for previous discussion. The College continues to claim that there are no merit scholarships at Williams.
Any reader still naive enough to think that the College is telling the truth should take a gander at what Tyng scholars actually receive.
I’m a Tyng Scholar.
One of six to eight in each entering class.
The Stephen H. Tyng scholarship covers all four years of undergrad study, plus three years of further scholarship assistance in grad school– seven years total. Plus stipends for special research or internship opportunities, and a grant to embark on additional studies over one undergrad summer.
It’s all grants. No work-study programs. No loans that have to be repaid. Just grants.
Williams costs $38,000 per year.
For the 2004-2005 school year, the Tyng scholarship grants amount to $37,137.
Total cost of college next year: $863.00.
So, not only does the Tyng support graduate school, but it provides all sorts of stipends, grants and other goodies that are not really necessary for one’s Williams education. If this is not a merit scholarship, then the term has no meaning.
Questions:
1) Does the College maintain a special endowment for the Tyng and, if so, how big is it? If there are about 28 Tyngs at any one time, then the total annual cost is over $1 million per year. That would suggest an endowment somewhere around $50 million.
2) How generous are the Williams Opportunity Scholarships?
3) Why does the College continue to dissemble on this? Is there some NESCAC or Little Three rule/agreement/policy whereby schools agree not to give merit awards?
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