This Week in Pictures - Williams College Edition

 

Paying More, Enjoying It Less: Student Approval Reaches a Depressing Low

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - According to a new poll released by the Williams Record, student opinion about the college's institutions and policies is heading in a negative direction. 

"Compared to the approval ratings survey from the fall 2020 semester," they wrote, "approval of the College dropped 17 percent, from 86 percent to 69 percent, while approval for President Maud S. Mandel decreased by 16 percent, from 72 percent to 56 percent. Eighty-five percent of students approved of the College faculty, a three percent decrease from the previous semester."

The study itself looks credible. There are about 2,000 students at the college. They report that they sent the approval rating survey to 500 randomly selected students. They indicated they got 169 respondents to answer their questions. They are reporting a response rate of 34 percent. Demographically, they report that, of the respondents, 36 percent were first-years, 18 percent were sophomores, 26 percent were juniors, and 20 percent were seniors.

One of the things that made the students unhappy was the heavy-handed approach president Maud Mandel took in cracking down on illegal campus drinking. The campus security staff shut down a large party at the famous Wood House and apparently there is still a lot of anger associated with the issue and with the fairly harsh punishments Maud dealt out to the youthful party-goers. 

Since there is basically no risk at all for young people exposed to COVID-19, I can imagine why they thought the college's policies were stupid and okay to ignore for a night. Nevertheless, the conflict over Wood House opened the door for campus do-gooders to smear the characters of the unfortunate students who had simply suffered enough of this bullshit and decided to take their chances that night. 

Writing about the Wood House debacle, the Williams Record shared the comments of Gigi Gamez ’22 who was worried about having on campus the type of person who would attend a party like that because they would probably be reckless in other ways too. The behavior of the partying students was "disheartening" to her. Disheartening, by the way, is a fancy way of saying that something is causing you to lose determination or confidence. 

I suppose we can take satisfaction ourselves in the fact that students are not happy with the results of their own woke students, faculty, and administrators who have turned the school into a leftist, critical theory-inspired madrasa. In a sane world, students would be less worried about shaming those who do not fear COVID-19 and more worried about the dangers of those cold, slippery, icy little roads.

John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist and a former Williams College professor. He is an occasional contributor at American Thinker, Breitbart, Front Page, PJMedia and WND.