Following my email sent on Wednesday regarding Springfest, I was very impressed to see Dr. Wright reply back by 9:20 that evening. I’m pleased with his response – generally – and will likely reply later today as a follow-up.
Dear Mr. Thiewes:
First, let me say that your letter is elegant and compelling. I hope you are receiving an A in the class.
Second, I hope my response is coherent, because I’ve spend eight hours on the road today. However, I felt you deserved a response this evening.
Third, I write this knowing you may share it with your class. That is fine, and I’ll let you decide how much to share, for some of what I will say I have not said in the Breeze forum in the interest of privacy for those who emailed me.
You may have noticed in the Breeze forum following the publication of my letter (the title was the Breeze’s), if you’ve followed it, that none of Springfest’s organizers have posted, no surprise, nor, to my knowledge, have any of the many students who take pride in JMU’s high party-school ranking in Playboy. Most of the posts and the private emails I’ve received from students have been pretty much like yours, though none so well reasoned. These are students who to participate in activities similar to yours; who are “right-thing doers.” Most of them, not you however, tended to view Springfest as a somewhat isolated incident, and they focused on distancing themselves from it. Springfest was, I believe, an extreme example of what happens every weekend to a lesser extent, a burst boil that leaves the infection behind (I know, terrible metaphor). JMU has a terrible alcohol problem, worse than most people think, and most people think it is very bad. I know this because, through family circumstance, I know several of the people who for years have delivered food to the student housing area. Every year they long for graduation and for most of the students to leave, even though during the summer months they make significantly less money. The stories they tell of student activities are appalling, so I take issue with your terms “vast majority” and “innumerable,” and that they’d rather make less money than enter the, as they call it, “debauchery zone,” gives their stories a great deal of credence.
Most of the students who emailed me or posted to the forum, including you, wanted me to acknowledge their contributions, for which indeed they should be proud. Most of their messages and yours also, subtly in many cases, rebuked me for treating them unfairly. I did. But (there’s always a “but”) was it fair that because of Springfest the terrified little girl of a faculty member living near student housing had to have the police take her home, because her grandmother couldn’t safely get to her house? This was a little girl who saw, according to her mother, more lewdness in that short trip up her street than her mother has seen in her life, and who wanted to attend JMU until April 10th. Was it fair to the student who last week was told during an internship interview that “We can’t take any JMU students at this time”? Still, I was unfair to you and others, and two unfairs don’t make a right or something like that. So I’ll get to that in a minute.
As I said, the hard-partiers-proud-of-the-party-school-reputation students, which I think are the majority of JMU students, though not a vast majority, didn’t comment on my letter, but not because they are hanging their heads in shame. Rather, they simply do not care, and they are waiting for the riot-generated spotlight to pass. We can’t expect from them any help in changing things. So I unfairly put the burden on students like you, that’s life, but if students like you don’t change things, don’t work to diminish JMU’s party-school reputation and by extension the amount of alcohol consumption, who will? The students not like you?
Some students who’ve contacted me have said the responsibility for changing things lies with the faculty and the administration. Maybe, but as I posted at one point, the faculty and the administration can only act punitively by either making sure students have a great deal less time on their hands and/or by moving closer to zero tolerance for alcohol related offenses, on and off campus.
However, in pondering what I’ve just said, you might want to ask yourself some questions. I see that you’re a junior, so in which year did you last have a MWF class, not MW, MWF? Do you have classes on MWF, on MWF at 8am, on MWF and TTH at 8am? Do you have late afternoon classes that meet on Fridays? Do you ever have assignments that require a whole weekend to complete more than three times in a semester? Have you since you’ve been here ever had to spend a great deal of time completing an assignment over Spring Break? If you answered “Yes” to my questions, would a significant number of your peers outside your major answer “Yes” as well? Do you spend at least two hours a week per credit hour of enrollment studying? Do your peers? I suspect you have a high GPA. Do some of your peers who work far less hard than you work and whose work is of a lower quality than yours have a similar or higher GPA?
I guess I never really apologized for treating you unfairly, but then you don’t need that, do you? You seem to know yourself.
Kenneth
Tags: Harrisonburg, JMU, Springfest