…And it’s all because its president talked down the wrong person.
Bowdoin President Barry Mills reportedly engaged in a golf game during the summer of last year with philanthropist and investor Thomas Klingenstein who, while not being a graduate of Bowdoin, was himself interested in the college’s approach to education. The result was an apparently awkward conversation during which Klingenstein complained of Bowdoin’s excessive celebration of “racial and ethnic difference,” in his words, rather than of “common American identity.” It is unclear precisely how sharp the conversation got, but it evidently distressed Mills enough that he decided to mention Klingenstein (albeit not by name) in his subsequent commencement address as a particularly unpleasant golfing partner who’d interrupted his backswing to spout racist platitudes.
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While I didn't bother to wade through the whole piece, this school reminds me very much of Salisbury State University; from which I graduated in 1985.
ReplyDeleteAs a faculty member at SU (it's not been SSU in quite a while), I can say that the claim that SU is some radical hotbed of leftism is patently absurd. Get a clue.
ReplyDeleteKlingenstein was merely parphrasing Teddy Roosevelt, who famously told some new immigrants that being an American means surrendering the identity of your former country. Don't come here and try to be an Italian-American, or Spanish American or what have you. We are one country, one people, one nation.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't read that speech, you should. Google it. It was forceful, eloquent, and right on the money. Then and today.
6:28! PM needs to get the clue!
ReplyDelete6:28 typical viewpoint of su faculty. Just proved the point.
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