Bowdoin solely defends “liberal heresy”

Letter to the editor: Bowdoin must stand up for the liberal arts

To the Editors,
The NAS report lowered the level of discourse to partisan mudslinging, but we ought to rise above it, as Bowdoin taught us to do.
The promise of the liberal arts is an education that pursues a better understanding of the human good by way of deliberation on diverse ideas. Diversity is not the goal in and of itself. Rather than merely acknowledging that people live differently, we are supposed to be considering how to live best ourselves. Studying other cultures informs our answer to this question.

Letter to the editor: Bowdoin’s hypocrisy of divestment issue

To the Editors,
Until Bowdoin’s endowment is entirely free of companies that profit from fossil fuels, the College should stop referring to itself as a “leader” in confronting climate change. President Mills should stop flaunting the College’s environmental bona fides when he gives speeches, because when it comes to this issue, Bowdoin is really more of a follower.
Make no mistake: I am proud of the fact that only 1.4 percent of the College’s endowment is still invested in fossil fuels. And I am proud of the financial aid, faculty salaries and campus facilities that Bowdoin can provide as a result of trucking with companies more interested in today’s profits than tomorrow’s common good. It’s the hypocrisy that I find unbecoming in my alma mater.

Letter to the editor

Bowdoin solely defends “liberal heresy”

April 11, 2013

To the Editors,

This week I have requested that the Alumni Office remove my name from the Bowdoin Magazine mailing list. I also want to strongly suggest that the president of this once great academic institution, Barry Mills, should immediately submit his letter of resignation to the Board of Trustees. The NAS report simply confirms what I have heard time and time again over the decades since my graduation—that Bowdoin has become just like any other anti-intellectual and intolerant academic institution in America—and that it has exchanged its distinguished record of pursuing knowledge and truth for “uniformity and partisanship.” Having taught at a small college myself, I am fully aware of the intolerance and bigotry shown toward people of a conservative cultural viewpoint—people who are frequently silenced, denied tenure or simply outright fired because they do not espouse the shallow truths of today's liberal heresy—a heresy which Mills so valiantly defends every time he opens his mouth.

Sincerely,
Peter Wilson ’70

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