OT letter to chancellor

[Toga]

What is a Rhetorical Studies major?

Is that a rhetorical question?

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Hypothetically ... if someone drinks too much at a Castle Court party, attempts to drive home, and gets involved in an accident where someone is either killed or injured, how much do the owners of Castle Court get sued for?

 

[goodroc]

The Same amount As the owners of the Famous fine lot

 

[Dave85]

Crazy how every one is attacking the author. I am little more disturbed by the right wing crack down on student parties as much as students getting mugged on Euclid Avenue. I lived in flat on Euclid a year and half and loved it. I don't remember it being a bad neighborhood. Maybe the kid has a point. Maybe the campus police have the wrong priorities.

"For the record, according to Syracuse’s school newspaper, The Daily Orange, “in the SU Department of Public Safety’s 2014 crime logs, Castle Court had one report of a personal injury on Feb. 22. In 2013, the year SU filed the complaint, there were three noise complaints and six reports of criminal mischief, according to DPS crime logs.” So…no reports of any major drug busts, no critical injuries, no deaths, no assaults, no major crimes at all? But by all means, shut it down. Riiiight. Syracuse’s department of public safety, by the way, declined to comment on the party ban."

You have to admit, the slip-n-slide in the back is pretty cool!

 

[Dave85]

Hypothetically ... if someone drinks too much at a Castle Court party, attempts to drive home, and gets involved in an accident where someone is either killed or injured, how much do the owners of Castle Court get sued for?

At least people driving cars are required to get liability insurance. The families of the babies killed at Sandy Hook Elementary got nothing. Maybe gun owners should have to buy liability insurance like people with cars do because of drunk drivers. Whoops, I forgot that I am forbidden to talk about politics. Darn these OT threads!!!

 

[Dave85]

[QUOTE="Dave85, post: 1119312, member: 3946 The Daily Orange, [/QUOTE]

“Nobody’s against parties, but everyone’s against mini-Woodstocks,” he said. “You’ve got to draw a line somewhere.”

LOL!

 

[Opus]

Talk about needing some writing classes, lol.

You have been a voice of reason in this thread. No playing of the race card. No politics involved. Just about the letter. Now go sniff a ditto Spicoli.

 

[llandz]

Open letters espousing the value of partying will fall on deaf ears. The Chancellor's number one task is academics. Plain and simple. He shouldn't have to apologize if the current party culture on campus hinders his ability to reach the goal he was hired for. I guarantee that he cares about the culture of the entire campus - which is far more rich and dynamic than the sub-culture likely represented exclusively in this letter. I don't worry about college students finding a place to party.

What proof is there that the current party culture is the cause of our academic decline or was even remotely considered a problem before this ranking? I think the prudent thing would be to further research what is the cause of the drop in rankings, and not to jump on the first plausible thing that comes along. What if this is not the cause? What if we are not the party school that this ranking implies? Will the school administration just spin their wheels thinking they have the answer, when they may not even be close? An educational institute of all places should be open minded and search out answers, not jump on the first one that comes along.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Let's be honest here. I guarantee former Orange Graduates partied a lot harder than the current students on the hill. There is less bars and more oversight on the hill now than there has ever been. A lot of this thread seems to come off as the adults acting better than the current students, when former orange alumni probably partied a lot harder than the current crop of students on the hill. If the number one party ranking never came out this wouldn't be an issue. I'm interested to see on big game days such as Florida State Football and Duke basketball, how DPS and the police are going to handle the parties, because both adults and students will be involved. Anyway, I wrote a letter in 2005 to SU administration, and they threatened to kick me out of school, so I'll be interested how this is perceived.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Let's be honest here. I guarantee former Orange Graduates partied a lot harder than the current students on the hill. There is less bars and more oversight on the hill now than there has ever been. A lot of this thread seems to come off as the adults acting better than the current students, when former orange alumni probably partied a lot harder than the current crop of students on the hill. If the number one party ranking never came out this wouldn't be an issue. I'm interested to see on big game days such as Florida State Football and Duke basketball, how DPS and the police are going to handle the parties, because both adults and students will be involved. Anyway, I wrote a letter in 2005 to SU administration, and they threatened to kick me out of school, so I'll be interested how this is perceived.

The difference is that back when we partied, the drinking age was only 18. It's now against the law to sell or provide alcohol to anyone under the age of 21.

Underage drinking happens on every college campus in the country, and schools tend to turn a blind eye as long as it's done privately and discreetly. Do you really think SU will set up a "safe zone" where underage kids can binge drink in public without being hassled?

I don't think Syverud has "condone illegal activities" at the top of his to-do list.

 

[Cusefan0307]

The difference is that back when we partied, the drinking age was only 18. It's now against the law to sell or provide alcohol to anyone under the age of 21.

Underage drinking happens on every college campus in the country, and schools tend to turn a blind eye as long as it's done privately and discreetly. Do you really think SU will set up a "safe zone" where underage kids can binge drink in public without being hassled?

I don't think Syverud has "condone illegal activities" at the top of his to-do list.

That's great and all, and I don't think you have to condone illegal activities. I was thinking more around 10 or 20 years ago, and not 30 when the drinking age was 18. No offense to those people on the board. I just think the "party" atmosphere that everyone thinks exists, is a lot less than it even was for people who are 30 on this board.

 

[Crusty]

At least people driving cars are required to get liability insurance. The families of the babies killed at Sandy Hook Elementary got nothing. Maybe gun owners should have to buy liability insurance like people with cars do because of drunk drivers. Whoops, I forgot that I am forbidden to talk about politics. Darn these OT threads!!!

Now that is an interesting concept. A license is required why not insurance? Imagine the premiums for a uzi or AK!

 

[Guinness]

How I imagine the chancellor when he reads that letter:

 

[Eric15]

How I imagine the chancellor when he reads that letter:

You were envisioning Chancellor Syverud without any pants on? Guinness, come on man!

 

[Guinness]

You were envisioning Chancellor Syverud without any pants on? Guinness, come on man!

 

[HoustonCuse]

My take on reading this: the author appears to think college reality should be based upon the many college movies that have come out over the years. The ones where partying is the primary function of the student body and thus the institution as a whole. The author's primary dissatisfaction with the Chancellor's job performance is that he is not doing enough to support student partying. I would argue that the mindset this betrays is evidence that the student culture at Syracuse has decayed to the point where it may very well be a "party-first" institution. In this light, such a letter will only convince the Chancellor to redouble efforts to turn the place around.

 

[TODDNTEXAS]

So essentially the message I got from the letter was the school should pay more attention to some of the other accomplishments and stop cracking down on student parties. My experience of college was each student got out of the University exactly what they put into it. There were a lot people who just got C's and partied all the time. And there were people who worked their butts off trying to get the best grades possible.

I think with such a variety of experiences in large university environment like Syracuse University people experience the university in many different ways. It doesn't bother me if people think Syracuse University is a party school. I think what each of us experiences is somewhat dictated by our prejudices. When I was at school, I saw great academic achievements, athletic achievements, social and community achievements, along with extraordinary drinking achievements. My memories of my life in college are just too broad to generalize. All I can really say is those four years were the some of the best years of my life.

Springsteen wrote a pretty good song about those days/years

 

[TODDNTEXAS]

You were envisioning Chancellor Syverud without any pants on? Guinness, come on man!

Pooh has spoken, no pants

 

[IthacaMatt]

http://sunshine044.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/problems-in-orange-nation/

I think you went a little too far in your last paragraph, making it his personal responsibility for the safety of everyone living off campus. I know your friends just got beaten up, but I think that makes your letter sound a bit whiny.

And, not to bust balls, but a college student at a fine university like S.U. ought to know the difference between "lead," "lead" and "led". Hint, you should have used the last one in the first sentence of your last paragraph. "Lead" pronounced with the short "e" sound is the element lead (Pb). "Led" is the past tense of "lead", as in "lead you down the wrong path".

 

[IthacaMatt]

I may be in the minority here but I actually like the new chancellor. Let's face it SU ranking has dropped almost 20 spots in the last six years the law school fell out of the top 100. I really think the Chancellor wants to get us back to where we were and I support it.

The "measure" of academic ranking is applications, acceptance rates, SAT scores and measurable things like library resources.

Whether or not a school has a "reputation" has nothing at all to do with how the rankings are calculated.

 

[IthacaMatt]

In many cases, it is someone who cannot get into Newhouse... but who wants to say he/she is a communications major at SU.

Ouch! LOL

 

[AZOrange]

"As of right now you are on paper the chancellor of Syracuse University, but until you start acting the part in an effective way you will never be my chancellor." No, see. He is your chancellor. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the author of this letter is the type of student that wrote an ethnography on Greek life for his sociology paper.

wait don't they pledge fealty?

 

[NKR1978]

http://www.nunesmagician.com/2014/9...discussion-about-this-savecuse-partying-video

I like got like appreciably dumber after having like watched the linked video. This is like one of the best things I've like read on TNIAAM in like a long time.

 

[Dave85]

Springsteen wrote a pretty good song about those days/years

I think he was writing about High School.

 

[oldpinepoint]

This is a missed opportunity! We should be leveraging the out of this so we can get more kids to live in the Sheraton. Our students can out party yours any day of the week and twice on Sunday.