Time for CUNY to Divest from Israel
by The Editor
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.“ –Nelson Mandela Israel’s unwarranted and outrageous attack upon the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is another sad reminder that the leaders of Israel are determined to indefinitely continue and defend the punishing and illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip and the continued isolation […]
Give me Taxes or Give me Death
by The Editor
“Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt Increasing taxes, even upon the extremely wealthy, is not (and has never been) a very popular position in postwar America. According to a 2009 Harris poll conducted for the Tax Foundation, 56 percent of Americans believe they […]
Faculty Equality Now
by From the Editor
Faculty Equality Now In a recent article, the New York Daily News reported that, although the great majority of CUNY’s more than 450,000 students are of black, Latino, or Asian origins, a predominant amount (about two-thirds) of the faculty members who teach those students are, not surprisingly, white. This lack of faculty representation is appalling, and all CUNY […]
Whose University?
by The Editor
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Last November, as many of you will no doubt remember, students and faculty at the University of California staged a series of protests and building takeovers in response to the UC Regents’ decision on November 19 to increase undergraduate […]
Education Uber Alles
by The Editor
“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” —Abraham Lincoln The recent round of student protests and building take-overs at campuses across the University of California system this week have been both inspiring and heart-breaking. The devastating and unprecedented 32 percent increase in student “fees” (the UC system’s way of getting […]
Back to Basics: Resisting the Allure of Technology in the Classroom
by The Editor
I’d like to make the argument that, despite our increasingly technological lives, or perhaps because of them, the creation and conservation of technology-free spaces where people can, and are encouraged, to communicate face-to-face, free of distraction, with nothing more than their unique temperaments and their private store of knowledge and eloquence, seems more and more important to me. Our students are already attention-deprived and overloaded. The idea of forcing them back onto the Internet, especially to privately owned, for-profit websites like Facebook and YouTube, as part of their schoolwork, seems at best counterproductive, and at worst incredibly irresponsible, even unethical.
A Riot of their Own
by From the Editor
“White riot –I wanna riot White riot — a riot of my own” —The Clash “Government…bullshit Black and white… fight” —The Subhumans At first the talk was all about the prospects of a “post-racial” America. Obama’s success among white voters (he received a larger percentage of the white vote than any democratic candidate since Carter) and the lack of […]
Writer’s Block
by Advocate Staff
“You don’t know what it is to stay a whole day with your head in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find a word.” –Gustave Flaubert “The imagination is man’s power over nature.” –Wallace Stevens It happens to all of us at one time or another. The blank page, the blinking cursor, […]
Give it Back! Getting New York’s Wealthiest to Pay Their Fair Share
by Advocate Staff
From the Editor “Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.” –Thomas Jefferson “Hey baby, nobody suffers like the poor!” –Charles Bukowski I know it’s difficult, especially for the majority of GC students facing […]
Putting Away Childish Things
by Advocate Staff
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” —Corinthians 13:11“In the epoch in which we now live, civilization is not an ideal or an aspiration, it is a video game.” —Benjamin R. Barber I am not one to gush, especially when it comes to […]
