I’m so, so glad my sister decided against attending Connecticut College back in 2012. Not only do they place hateful, bigoted, intolerant students in positions of administrative authority, but the administration and numerous faculty are morally vapid and blatantly antisemitic.
Parents, don’t let your children go to this college…their ability to actually do critical thinking and learn to debate contentious issues with free speech will be actively hampered by an administration that views itself basically as a nanny for whining, infantile college students who find microaggressions around every corner. Conn College is clearly more interested in social engineering and political correctness over the intellectual development of their students. And they are mindlessly proud of their mandatory “groupthink” diversity sessions for which they cancelled classes!
Princeton University and the University of Chicago (places with actual intelligent people running their administrations) have both come out against the kinds of policies used at Conn College. If Conn wanted to be seen as an academic and intellectual institution, they should adopt the same resolutions.
In addition, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has given Conn College a Red Light rating (the worst possible) for lack of free speech and for failure to uphold First Amendment rights on their campus.
Finally, although I personally think Professor Pessin should pursue legal action against Conn College, their faculty, and individual students involved in his defamation, I at least think that anyone who cares about free speech at American academic institutions should sign this petition:
I admire the president of Loyola University’s call for civil behavior over this issue on his campus. I am sad that this compassionate man is retiring. I hope his successor will call for tolerance as well.
Exactly. College years should be filled with exploration and open dialogue on a variety of issues. Instead, we are seeing a rise in groupthink, mind police, etc. and a very nasty undercurrent towards those who disagree. Very frightening and sad.
I wanted to post something of interest with a lighter tone last night, but all of my searches turned up more articles on the rise in anti-Semitism and the growing anti-Israel climate on campuses with a witch hunt mentality thrown in for good measure. So, while we cannot bury our collective heads in the sand, I don’t want this thread to become overly depressing and negative either.
I encourage everyone to continue to post news on Jewish life on college campuses - and let’s find some positive stories too - particularly on campuses that might be less obvious choices for Jewish students.
Ok rockvillemom you (and Rabbi Matt Rosenberg) asked for it. A couple of years ago I never expected that TAMU would be mentioned twice in one month for Jewish life on campus but below are portions of a message from my inbox yesterday from their Hillel. Again, it makes me proud! Just to be clear there are pro Palestinian organizations on campus as well but I don’t know of any negative incidents. My son had a chance encounter with a leader of one of those organizations and he told me that they had a really interesting conversation. The message from Hillel is pasted below:
Howdy!
Yesterday we celebrated the 67th anniversary of Israel’s independence and all over campus, Israel was in the spotlight.
On Wednesday night, the Texas A&M Student Senate passed a pro-Israel resolution, becoming the first campus in Texas and the fourth campus in the country to do so this year! The resolution calls upon Texas A&M University to increase academic cooperation with Israel and to expand study abroad opportunities in Israel. Texas A&M follows the University of Georgia, University of Nevada Las Vegas, and University of Nevada Reno to pass a pro-Israel resolution in 2015.
The resolution was the inspiration of our Aggie Students Supporting Israel group and was passed unanimously in the student senate!
In other pro-Israel news from Aggieland, yesterday was our first Aggie Israel Fair! Over 300 students participated in the fair, visiting booths that focus on Israeli agricultural innovations, culture, politics, food, the IDF, Jewish life in Israel, and more.
Thanks, Gig ‘Em, and Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Matt Rosenberg
P.S. Please share this amazing news with your friends! We would love the world to know that Texas A&M remains one of the most pro-Israel and pro-Jewish campuses in the nation!
Love it! This illustrates one of our goals beautifully - to identify colleges for Jewish “B” students that might not be obvious possibilities. Thanks for sharing.
It really is often overlooked even by Jewish Texans. I don’t want to be misleading thoughThere are back door ways for “B” students to be admitted but with the top 10% rule for Texas students, the popularity of the school among Texas students and a very generous NM scholarship program it really isn’t a “true B” school. I don’t know how competitive it is for OOS students. I haven’t been able to figure out a way to look it up. Even if average OOS admission stats were located ( which I have looked for but haven’t found). These are likely to be skewed by the high rate of OOS NM admissions attracted by scholarships.
Also to be clear when I mentioned not expecting the school to have been mentioned 2 years ago that was because of the low percentage of Jewish students on campus. The Jewish community always has been active warm and incredibly welcoming. I know that influenced my son’s decision.
@fretfulmother My husband and daughter visited in the Fall but were not impressed. The admissions office seemed disorganized to them; if I remember correctly, the visits I requested with professors were not set up. But I had heard good things about them initially which is why it was on “the list.”
fretfulmother - I have not visited Ursinus and am not all that familiar with it - but I know it has come up before. Try using the search function at the very top to find all posts on Ursinus.
Cash and a credit card. Convert dollars to shekels upon arrival. Make sure to alert credit card company to the international travel so charges go through. There will be currency conversion fees, but they are typically small - like 50 cents on a $15 purchase from what I recall.
If she has an ATM card, the best way to convert money is to just go to a machine and withdraw shekels. That’s what we did - credit card and ATM for cash. Some credit cards have no foreign transaction fees, but the fees aren’t that great. THere will also be a couple of dollar fee to withdraw from the ATM, but it’s still the cheapest way to get cash.
My child attended Hebrew school all through elementary and middle school, but went to boarding school 9th and 10th, and couldn’t participate in her NFTY group. Now a junior is back home and did participate, but not sure how this should be listed on upcoming applications. Any advice?
