Opinion

Last week, sports columnist Marcus Rodrigue published an article in the Louisiana State University student newspaper, the Daily Reveille, explaining to LSU readers what a paladin is and why the Furman Paladins represent a threat to LSU’s championship-pedigree football program.

The topic of mental health is especially relevant at this time of year, given the deployment of psychiatric disorders as a plot device in many Halloween horror stories. The same narrative appears in the way that we often attempt to understand social ills like crime and poverty according to our own fear and ignorance regarding mental health.

How many times have you heard somebody say, “Amurrica!” in the past week? Did you ever consider that that little utterance has a disastrous impact on the country, that it signals the erosion of our national character into nihilist, Eurozone emptiness?

In the four listening session that occurred in the past few weeks, faculty, staff, and students had the opportunity to stand in front of the presidential search committee and offer answers to this question.

Twelve years ago, our country faced one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in its history. We lost loved ones at the Twin Towers in New York, Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and on United Airlines Flight 93. In the days to come, we rallied around the flag, regained a strong sense of national pride, and stood together. America was on the mend, united in the face of adversity and stronger than ever.

A college education is often associated with the development of the mind and intellect. This picture, while accurate, is incomplete. The body, recognized by often minimized, is another important aspect of personal development, and the college experience offers a unique formulative opportunity to cultivate community through physical activity and healthy daily lifestyle.

Twenty years ago, the first Associated Colleges of the South biennial Women’s and Gender Studies conference was held at our very own Furman University. Our University will welcome back the conference to its campus on April 4th and 5th, 2014. The sixteen member institutions meet every other year and discuss a specific theme that is relevant to gender studies.

Democracy is violent almost by definition. As outlined by James Madison in the tenth essay of the Federalist Papers, one of the greatest threats in any government by the people is that different groups will move so strongly in different directions that it will tear a democratic society apart. In arguing for the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787, Madison describes the problem with the current partisanship in Washington, crystallized in the ongoing government shutdown that shows no signs of ending.

There is panic in our public schools. There is always panic. There is a persistent fear that the United States education system is failing our children. In many ways it is.

It’s the topic of conversation that echoes off the library’s walls in the early morning hours when the angst must be directed somewhere: the new schedule for Einstein’s. Upperclassmen know that in previous years one’s late-night caffeine withdrawals and bagel cravings could be satisfied by the silver bullet that was the 1 a.m. study break at Einstein’s. But what if the Einstein’s hours are about a different kind of injustice than that which we are all prone to selfishly rant about?

Albert Einstein once said, “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” In the United States today, regardless of one’s political leanings, almost everyone will agree that the education system is lacking. In an attempt at reformation, 45 states have adopted the Common Core standards.

Just down the road at Converse, another small liberal arts college in South Carolina, students are getting a break from the pricey cost of higher education. The school administration recently made the decision to decrease Converse College’s 2014-2015 tuition by 43 percent, from $29,124 to $16,500. This may spark jealousy from the students attending Furman, the most expensive private university in South Carolina, but there are drawbacks to such a reduction.

For those of us who study modern languages, as well as ancient ones such as Greek and Latin, the skepticism in American education that surrounds our learning a foreign tongue is all too tired.

Right now, Furman is in the process of re-evaluating its First Year Seminar Program. The upcoming work of the First Year Seminar oversight committee are part of a larger evaluation of the program required by Furman’s accreditation agency, the Southern Association for Colleges and Schools. In the upcoming year, the oversight committee will be collecting information from students and faculty, researching student evaluations from seminars in years past, and proposing a potential set of changes to the faculty for a vote.

Did you know that by attending Euphoria, Greenville’s food, wine, and music festival, you would get the chance to rub elbows with community leaders, celebrity chefs, recording artists, and members of the national media and raise a little money for charity in the process? All the profits from this opportunity to enjoy Greenville, familiarize oneself with the culinary arts, sip lovely libations, and jam out with Nashville’s best singer-songwriters go to charities that benefit the Greenville community.

In May of 2013, Guatemala welcomed Furman’s Global Sustainability May Experience Class. The trip offered us the chance to relax occasionally (tropical hot springs, anyone?) but more often work hard (moving boulders). It led to beautiful friendships as well as shattering realizations. No member of our team returned to the United States unchanged.

The search for Furman’s next president has officially begun. This past week, the presidential search committee — a body consisting of trustees, three professors, one student, and various members of the administration — met for the first time.

Welcome back to all returning students! To the Class of 2017, we are thrilled to have you on campus. It is an honor to serve you as your Student Government Association President. This year is off to a great start, and I hope to provide you with a brief insight into the Student Government Association and some goings-on of our university.

It’s been reported that on average, women only make $0.77 for every dollar that a man makes in the workforce. Wait, what? That doesn’t make sense to me. Why, if I’m performing the same tasks, and accomplishing the same goals, should I be paid less for my contribution? The numbers, literally, do not add up.

When a trial reaches the national prominence that Florida v. Zimmerman has attained, it loses any sense of fairness or justice. It becomes something other than a search for truth in a contest between prosecution and defense. At the national level, trials like this become entirely politicized.

Keda Dubard, Class of 2014 Brian Boda, SGA President Jenna Barnett, Class of 2014 Julia Roberts, Class of 2016

At the end of President Rodney Smolla’s brief tenure and during a period of transition for the university, we are in a unique position to reflect on who we are as a university and who we want to be. Now is the opportune time to reflect on the recent past and the future of Furman University and to evaluate what policies and practices are worth maintaining.

Welcome to all of the members of the Furman family — new and returning students, parents, faculty, staff, administrators, coaches — as a new academic year in the life of Furman University begins. As in nearly all beginnings, there are things familiar and unchanged and things unfamiliar but full of opportunity.

Furman University as a liberal arts institution purports to embody liberal education - as pluralistic and holistic training of students to think critically. “Let a thousand flowers bloom” – a liberal arts institution must be a marketplace of ideas, of all ideas, to justify its theoretical commitment to liberal education.

Discussions about patriotism often make me uncomfortable. There is a saying that patriotism is having the belief that a particular spot of land is better than another simply because you were born there. I am inclined to agree that the concept is somewhat self-centered.