来自总统:《火博体育》杂志，2024年春季
What a fascinating, troubling time we are in — particularly in our field of higher 教育. 这 year, as we seemed to finally emerge from the COVID pandemic, many anticipated a more “normal” academic year — a year without the sense of crisis that has marked the first three years of my own presidency at Skidmore. 事实上 year got off to that sort of hopeful start — the energy and enthusiasm on our campus 很明显，而且可能性很大.
然后，在10月. 7, the terrorist group Hamas launched a horrific attack on Israel. A terrible war has ensued, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands — Palestinians, Israelis, combatants, innocent victims — and unspeakable violence and suffering for 整个地区都有很多. 冲突带来的压力 college campuses have been profound, particularly around the issues of freedom of expression, academic freedom, political demonstration, and especially the climate 以及校园想要提供的社区意识.
Here at Skidmore, we have dedicated ourselves to the support of our students during 这个充满挑战的时刻. Over the past months, we have held numerous meetings, gatherings, 信息会议、讲座和讨论. 我们的教员领导着教育事业 panels on the history, geography, and politics of the Middle East; created new courses so our students can study the nuances of this region; and invited guest speakers and 专家到校园. We have worked with our students as they engaged in political activity such as demonstrations and vigils, guiding them through their efforts to make sense of a conflict that has certainly eluded the wisest among us to resolve. 我们有 向许多选民解释 我们对言论自由的坚定承诺 and the exchange of ideas and perspectives that is so essential to a college, while constantly reaffirming our categorical rejection of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and 所有仇恨的表达.
这一点必须强调. 我们坚决支持思想自由的原则 and expression, and we affirm that speech that does not directly advocate hatred or violence, and that does not interfere with the 教育al process through intimidation or harassment, is legitimate expression that must not be silenced or censored. 这 is true even when the speech is offensive, insulting, or unwelcome to some — as I have said repeatedly, the speech that one hates is not therefore hate speech. 和 some of the most challenging expressions we have heard are in fact contested speech — phrases, slogans, and symbols that can mean multiple things, depending on who says them, what the intent is, and what the surrounding community is like. 有争议的演讲 requires interpretation; it requires challenge, debate, and discussion; in short, it requires exactly the kind of 教育al practice that a college like Skidmore 致力于提供.
Such practice is especially important because that kind of openness to argument and contrary perspectives and the ability to engage in dialogue across difference is the 我认为这是当今民主制度中最危险的技能. 我们在政治上看到了吗 球? 在媒体上? 在我们的公共机构和倡议中? 极化 and closed-mindedness of our current society is the most potent threat to the civic democracy that constitutes the great foundation of the United States.
I continue to believe in that foundation, flawed though our efforts may often be — for as the preamble to the Constitution states, the effort is always “to form a more perfect Union,” understanding this work to be always ongoing. 让我们的学生做好准备 to engage in civic democracy — “to make the choices required of informed, responsible citizens” — is at the heart of the Skidmore mission statement.
这就是为什么火博体育最近加入 公民准备大学校长 initiative, an effort of the Citizens and Scholars Institute that focuses on preparing and educating our students for the work of democratic citizenship. 大专院校 are among the few places in America where people from remarkably different backgrounds, cultures, and ideologies come together to wrestle with the complexity of what it means to be a democratic community — an awesome and challenging responsibility that has 从未如此重要. I am eager to advance such efforts at Skidmore and strengthen our campus’s commitments to freedom and the spirit of democracy. 坦率地说，我认为 当今大学校园的最高目标是什么.
I am extremely proud of how well Skidmore has endeavored in that work throughout this 这是我们国家和世界动荡的季节. 我感谢那些非常敬业的人 staff and faculty who have done so much to move that mission forward. 我尤其 proud of our students, who continue to show such moral courage; such tenacity and endurance; and such a commitment to finding a moral pathway forward in a confused 不断挑战的世界. It is indeed my privilege and my blessing to be in the 在火博体育的努力.