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Posts tagged as “Karen Colmán Martínez”

1000 Ways for a Party to Die (featuring Scshenangians)

Not I, nor anyone else, would dare to call Smith College a party school. It is not an overstatement or bad faith criticism to say weekends on campus are sometimes, perhaps often, dire. The underwhelming party scene is widely recognized and, for this very reason, also not particularly compelling to analyze.

Our endowment is our future, but what about our present?

A couple of years ago, media outlets including The Nation and The Washington Post were referring to the latest wisecrack (a clever or sarcastic remark) about Harvard University: the ivy-league institution had turned into a hedge fund with a university attached to it. Students called upon Harvard to ‘unhedge’ its endowment while others praised its financial planning strategies. An open letter in The Atlantic called it a ‘brand problem’ yet also a ‘literal truth.’ This characterization underscores a broader trend among universities and colleges, the apparent intent to accumulate the largest endowment ever seen. Maybe we should start thinking about how, and what we are getting this money for.

In Loving Memory of American Higher Education

I have probably read over 200 Buzzfeed articles throughout my life. Back when it was still culturally relevant, much of its content focused on American college life and the culture that emerged from within it. From 23 things that perfectly define “college culture” and 21 things that are so college, it hurts. The 2010s were the years of America’s cultural hegemony; American cultural products (books, movies, music, art, etc.) were consumed all around the world.

Responding to Silence

On Feb. 28, 2022, the Smith College Provost Office released a statement titled “Responding to the Invasion of Ukraine.” The letter unequivocally labeled the events of Feb. 24, 2022 an invasion, which was urgently condemned and its “humanitarian consequences” recognized. The statement was clear; there was no potential ambiguity, no room for doubt or misinterpretation. In this case, history didn’t seem complicated and the conversations weren’t difficult. The discourse was not a mere clash or the latest episode in the convoluted conflict between Russia and Ukraine; it was unmistakably an invasion.