To those who have been offended...

I was recently approached by two faculty members, while hanging our second batch of posters, who had some pointed things to say about our campaign. Their primary arguments focused on the hurtfulness of our posted material. This was not our intent. Our goal with our - admittedly sharp - posters was to incite both students and faculty to look deeper into what we were saying, and ultimately get them to visit this site. If you are reading this, it has worked.

To address the "hurtfulness" of our material further; I assure that the aggressiveness of our posters is not reflected in our website, survey, or our overall mission. Ours is a mission to encourage students to speak up, and to encourage faculty and administration to listen.

One argument that was made to me was that students should be encouraged to direct their comments to the teachers themselves, instead of "going around behind their backs." While I dearly wish this was a realistic request of our fellow students, it is not. Many (dare I say, most?) of the student body do not address these issues to their instructors for a number of reasons, but perhaps the most potent is fear. Students hesitate to commit to constructive discourse with their teachers, because they fear a backlash. Opinions are not voiced for fear of undo punishment. Quite frankly, based on personal experience concerning confronted instructors, I do not blame them. Our goal with this site is to circumvent these fears, by allowing students to express their opinions anonymously, without chance for chastisement. We will then pass on the relevant information to the appropriate members of the administration.

On a slightly unrelated note:

If you witness anyone taking down our posters (around three quarters of our first batch were removed) could you please remind that person that the unrequested removal of school-approved material, by a party other than the poster, is not only rude, but also illegal censorship.

Thanks again for reading, and I personally apologize for any hurt feelings. If you have any comments, don't hesitate to forward them to me at: matthansenart@gmail.com

-matt