Viking Restaurant

The Integrator Has Returned

A special thanks to Jonathan Davis for bringing this back. You can visit his site at:

http://gridbook.blogspot.com/2007/08/covenant-college-needs-help.html

Letter to the Covenant College Administration (Regarding the Bagpipe)

Just for the record, this is the letter that has been drafted by some alumni to be sent to the Covenant College administration regarding the new Bagpipe policy. If you arent aware of what I'm talking about I refer you to Irresponsible Journalism and the post here. We are looking for as many alumni and current students to sign this as possible. You can read and sign the letter at http://covenant-letter.pbwiki.com/DraftCandidate.

You can also read it right here:

Dear President Nielson:

Over the past few years, changes in Covenant policy have sparked heated responses from a number of students and alumni. At times students and alumni have been guilty of judging too quickly, and thus have not given the administration's arguments for change a fair hearing. This is unfortunate.

We want to respond graciously to the current decision to place ultimate authority over the content of the Bagpipe with a faculty advisor. However, we cannot remain silent in the face of such a dramatic and unexpected change in policy. We are concerned that this decision will only further widen the communications gap between the administration and the population which it seeks to serve.

It has been a long-honored right of the student editors of the Bagpipe to choose their own staff and to publish whatever article they see fit for public distribution. Thankfully, the student editor has never been asked to publish articles with the intent of protecting the "interests of the college," but has instead been free to publish the honest expression of student journalists, even when that expression conflicts with the college's official positions.

Bagpipe editors have sometimes exercised their freedom irresponsibly. However, learning cannot occur unless student are allowed to make mistakes. The role of the faculty advisor in the production of the Bagpipe should be to offer suggestions and guidance on journalistic ethics, not to determine whether content should be published. Students need the freedom to fail if they are ever to succeed, and they need this to be a true freedom in which they are truly responsible for the articles they publish.

In giving a staff or faculty advisor the right to "delay publication and distribution" of the Bagpipe "when necessary," the college has essentially claimed that it, not the students, has final editorial authority. We do not believe this action can be justified. There have been attempts by the administration to justify this decision by suggesting that the Bagpipe staff needs "mentoring oversight" to make sure the paper is free of grammatical and spelling errors, is factually accurate, reflects a Christian World and Life view, and does not contain what the college deems to be "inappropriate materials."

We do not believe a staff or faculty advisor is inherently more capable of addressing these matters than a student editor. Students are not the only ones who can make grammatical and spelling errors. Furthermore, the factual content of an article, its editorial stance, and whether it constitutes "inappropriate material," are all matters of debate. In fact, these are precisely the issues that the press is called to investigate.

The Bagpipe is, and should remain, a student newspaper - both as written and as edited. If it is to be trusted by its audience, which is primarily the student body, it should not be seen as an official organ of the administration, but rather as an independent body which can act as a watchdog for the interests of students at large. For this reason, we believe the student editor - not a faculty or staff advisor - should have the final authority to decide whether articles are accurate and appropriate prior to their publication.

Bagpipe staff have traditionally welcomed and respected the opinions of faculty and staff. If anyone believed themselves to be misrepresented in an article, the editors were willing both to print letters of response and to issue corrections when necessary.

Furthermore, the Bagpipe has always had an advisor, who while protecting the student editor's final authority, has served to offer "mentoring oversight" where needed - not under compulsion, but freely and generously. We are sorry that the most recent advisor has been forced to resign from this position because he was not willing to take final editorial control from the hands of the students.

We believe that the administration's actions may be motivated by a confusion between the Bagpipe's news reportage and its editorial sections, as well as by offense at the satire printed each April's Fools Day in the Windbag. However, it is the common practice of newspapers not only to report on the news, but also to offer their own editorial comment on it. As long as editorials and satire are identifiable as such, students should be free to print such materials.

Ultimately, we do not believe this policy change is an issue of "mentoring oversight." It is an issue of control. By this new policy, final control has been taken from the students and given to the administration. And this is wrong.

We, the alumni, ask the administration to immediately overturn this policy and to grant the student editor of the Bagpipe the final right to decide when the Bagpipe will be published and what content it will contain.

If this freedom is granted, the student editor could make decisions that would harm the reputation of both the newspaper and of the college. And yet the administration needs to take this risk, because it needs to trust its students. Covenant's students have always thrived insofar as academic freedom and institutional trust have been valued and encouraged.

Covenant students need to know that the administration trusts them enough to let the faculty proclaim the truth, and let the students work out the implications for their Christian calling. Students need to learn responsibility, and so they must be treated as responsible. Students need the right to express themselves, and to speak out in a forum that will print their opinions without fear or favor.

To truly support its students, Covenant's administration must protect their freedom of speech. The student newspaper is one of the chief forums in which this right is exercised. A college that promotes the work of a vital and interesting student newspaper offers not only great preparation for citizenship, but also demonstrates to a skeptical world that liberty and orthodoxy can coexist.

Therefore, we believe the college must uphold student editorial control, at the Bagpipe and at all student publications. To do otherwise would be truly unfortunate, for the interests of students, alumni, and administration alike.

Signed,

Im Still Alive

And Ive been alive all summer, as those in Chattanooga will soon discover when I return to the homeland on August 20th. Here is some evidence of my continued existence this summer:

In chill mode:

In charismatic worship mode:

In engaging conversationalist mode:

Miso Happy to hang out with Macey this summer: