i've been at guilford almost three full years. that's amazing to think. i hadn't really fully realized that until this morning.

i just finished yesterday evening, part three of my series of articles on guilford's changes and its image. the last few issues of the guilfordian have been awesome, and i'm seriously not just saying that because my articles are in there. i'm pleased to see news and forum, as well as forum and guilford itself, corresponding together so well this year. if any of you guilfordians haven't read the guilfordian the last two weeks, get on that train and read them. and talk about them if you're so inclined. speak. keep speaking. we're onto something. a lot of us. this school is too divided. guilford isn't about whether you're a hippie, freak, prep, jock, geek, whatever; or at least it shouldn't be. guilford, in my mind, is (or at least stands for) a very awake environment; what i mean is guilford has a strong social-consciousness and is focused around some amazing principles, and if we're willing to work on our divisions i think we'd be able to benefit more from the diversity this campus does have and the people who make up this diversity would be able to benefit more from this school's environment and values in general.

anyway, part three turned out really well i think. it was difficult to write at first; so difficult i was convinced for five hours that i couldn't use words. then i wrote it all at one time. that's how i work a lot. i'll try to think of how i want to say things, try to find the words, the right words, and i'll get stuck. then i end up so stuck i become unstuck and it all comes out at once. it's not the best way to go about writing even if it almost-always ends up working; i need to focus on not trying so hard for the right words at first and just letting words flow out and fix them up as i go.

and after i wrote part three, i had to prepare to lead discussion in max's class this morning at 8:30 because 2/15 was the date i drew from the hat at the beginning of the semester. synchronicitously enough the readings were about twin oaks community's diversity and social divisions. so i turned the discussion toward guilford and people's reasons for coming here, what they thought the guilford experience would be, and how their actual experience compares to the expectation they had before they came. we ended up having an active discussion for an hour, spending a lot of time talking about the division between athletes and non-athletes here.

i didn't get a chance to bring up in class how interesting it was for me to come to an environment where a liberal viewpoint was more the norm from growing up in an environment in which i felt alienated because of my values and interests. i grew up in a small, conservative north carolina town and attended a high school that did a good job of alienating most anyone who didn't fit into societal norms. i've never sought an environment where everyone thinks like me, but in high school i did always hope there were places where i could feel comfortable being myself and feel respected even by those who radically disagree with me. sitting in dana auditorium with a bunch of guilford students when i saw jello biafra speak at guilford when i was in ninth grade, i got a very strong feeling that guilford would be that kind of place for me. throughout high school i attended a few campus events (wqfs's 15th anniversary celebration, book sales in the library) and went on several tours and came for several scheduled visits. there were several other speakers here when i was in high school i would've loved to have attended, like afeni shakur and also ralph nader. i remember asking my admissions counselor if i could visit during serendipity and he said i probably shouldn't. i didn't press the issue at the time, but i asked randy doss about this when i interviewed him. he basically said that guilford didn't look very appealing to prospectives during serendipity.

i knew pretty much all through high school i wanted to come to guilford. the notion that guilford was awaiting me after i got through central davidson high school, helped me get through central davidson high school. when a high school classmate called guilford a "freak school", i wasn't put off. a lot of people in our society, after all, do seem to find open-mindedness and acceptance quite strange and frightening. if that's what a "freak school" is, i'm glad i'm at a "freak school".

i love guilford. this place holds a very deep value. we need, especially at this point in current events but at any point in time, places that encourage questioning norms and power to ensure that these are valid and challenge them non-violently if they are not. i seriously love this place, or else i wouldn't complain about it so damn much.

i'm glad i ended up at a quaker college. i find that some quaker principles like the idea that everyone has direct access to god and truth and is a potential source of revealed truth are things that have always made sense to me even if i had different words for them. and i've found that many quaker principles have inspired me to act more own my own principles and to get past my anxiety enough to be a more participatory person.

i can't fucking believe i have only a little over a year left here. can i stay in the guilford bubble forever? i'm kidding; i want to participate in the world, too. i feel that more urgently, more intensely, more deeply than ever today.

i also feel alive and i feel valuable.

today it's 60-some degrees outside and the sky is beautiful.

I spent the afternoon and evening compiling everything I have for my article on Guilford's image change. All I need to do now is find the notebook I was using when I interviewed this guy Adam who worked for Guilford's cafeteria for a couple years before he enrolled as a student and get a few more last-minute interviews (I want to talk to a few people in admissions, maybe some people in the continuing education department, and there are a couple people I've emailed questions who may still respond).

Kent Chabotar and Randy Doss (the college's president and vice-president, respectively) both stress that there has not been an intentional change of the school's image. Randy stressed that statistics show attitudes and viewpoints of incoming Guilford freshman have been pretty consistent for the last 10-15 years. I haven't seen these statistics and would like to see them before I write the article. Apparently they were gathered from a survey given to first-years during orientation. I scarcely remember taking such a survey, so I wonder how seriously students take some multiple-choice survey answered on a Scantron sheet. I can't help but wonder how good of an indicator is such a survey, really?

Kent, particularly, seemed pretty uncomfortable when I asked him questions like: Do you feel there's a tension between attracting a wider range of students and keeping Guilford a place where "countercultural" people come? and What do the Quaker principles the school emphasizes mean to you?

To the first of these two questions, he just said the only tension he sees lies in confronting difference and stressed that Guilford isn't a place to come if you want everyone to look, think, and act like yourself. I don't think the "countercultural" (this is the descriptor Kent used; better descriptors might be socially-conscious, activists, non-conformists, etc.) students Guilford has traditionally attracted want a school where everyone looks and thinks the same; and I think when Kent answered my question in such a way he missed the point.

To my question about Quaker values, Kent gave a political answer that pretty much told me: "I either don't personally know a damn thing about them, or, if I do, I don't want to talk about them. Look at the Strategic Long-Range Plan brochure, and you'll find out which ones the school emphasizes (and receive shoddy, short definitions that don't do the principles justice)."

Most students I interviewed don't think lack of diversity has ever been a problem at Guilford, and some point out how Guilford's new advertising brochures present a too-glossy picture of diversity. Many talked about how disturbed they are that the school may build on the meadows and by the lake and may even deforest some of the non-old-growth parts of the woods. Many also don't think the school is properly emphasizing the Quaker principles it claims it holds so important. I think Kent's statements that "Guilford is not a Quaker school, just a school with Quaker roots" are potentially dangerous in the future.

As Max Carter, director of the Quaker Studies program, said: Guilford has always been sort of a haven for people who want social change, largely due to Quakerism's emphasis on direct access to God and truth, which leads to its emphasis on equality.

Another student, Jai, pointed out that Quaker principles and history have something to offer everyone no matter what one's religious background. One doesn't have to take Quakerism as a religion; one can look at its principles and historical examples of people convinced of these principles living by them.

I don't really know exactly how I'm going to organize this article anymore, but I'm damn excited about writing it. And I agree with what Leah, a sophomore who last year considered transferring out of Guilford, said about why she decided to stay at Guilford: People need to stay at Guilford to try and combat the negative changes and encourage the positive ones. Just sitting there and going with the flow won't lead to any positive outcome.

I don't want to forget this article/thread, so I'm linking here for myself. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/25/0029204&threshold=1&tid=158&tid=215&tid=219


The other night I got one hell of an interview for my image change article. I talked to Jai who's a senior at Guilford. He talked a lot about how he doesn't feel the school's history and Quaker heritage is impressed upon the students enough during orientation. Quaker principles, he said and I agree with him, have a hell of a lot to off anyone no matter what one's religious background.

I'm ridiculously excited about my next semester's classes. I have Quaker Commitment & Community, Infinity & Non-Computability, Fiction Workshop, and (well, maybe I'm not as excited about this last one) General Botany. I hope the Philosophy Major 3rd Year Career Seminar I have to take isn't too tedious. I absolutely loathe resumés even though I know I'll have to at least get around to making a real one soon.

What I really want to do is become a philosophy professor who teaches classes on dadaism, zen, CRASS's lyrics/philosophies, and Kurt Vonnegut. I also want to write poetry, novels, non-fiction, and maybe even freelance columns.

I need to finish the paper I turned in incomplete for my W.E.B. Dubois class. I was writing about American democracy and education. I'm convinced that the educational system is set up to encourage conformity over creativity and originality, to a real fault. It kills me seeing amazingly intelligent, creative people fall through the cracks and get thrown away because they don't fit the mold of "successful and societally-acceptable". I think this education problem is a symptom of a societal problem: America wants cogs to (willingly, eagerly, blindly!) work soul-deadening jobs; cogs who won't think beyond what the latest advertisement has convinced them they must buy and own. Anyone who is reading this: If you have any suggestions for resources or further reading, I would be greatly appreciative!

Outline for article on Guilford College's image change

What has drawn people to Guilford?
What is Guilford like when those people get here?
Do people think the school is intentionally changing its image?
What makes Guilford special (what makes it Guilford)?
What impact does Guilford's push to get more students enrolled have on the way it markets itself?
Is Guilford, in focusing its advertising on creating an intentionally-diverse community of ideas, forgetting to emphasize that a diverse community of ideas accepts all ideas even non-conformist ones? If it is forgetting to emphasize this aspect of the diversity it boasts and strives toward, what does this mean for the school?
What larger societal themes tie into the current situation at Guilford?
Throughout, how do Quaker principles and testimonies (particularly the ones Chabotar incorporates into his Strategic Long-Range Plan for Guilford) speak to these questions?

long drives in bumfuck
imagining objects' personalities
kicking plato's ass
shattering the form of aristotle
his essence destroyed

can matter think?

just poof, fucker
where to?

nowhere
nowhere men in a nowhere land fighting a nowhere war

no war
no war can end wars
no acts of terrorism in the name of democracy can end terrorism

no democracy that says security is more important than liberty
is democracy
anywhere

too many republic(an)s

matter shatter
form born
matters?
no

you'd have us believe our eyes ears mouths are dangerous
treasonous
treacherous
terror us

terror u.s.