Extra Credit for Protesting? Not So Fast, Says Pitzer Student

I don't know what to make of this. On the one hand, I'm glad that Pitzer College doesn't bribe its students with extra credit, but on the other hand, I'm disappointed that someone would feel the need to lie or at the very least mislead to advance an agenda. In any event, thanks for clearing it up, reader.

Hey Charles,

I read that Claremont Courier thing on the Gilchrist debacle and I figured you'd pick up on it too.

As a Pitzer NRS student, I was really offended by the Donna Lowe quote:

"Buca[Di Beppo] felt the political pressure from the colleges for giving extra credit to any student who would show up here and protest," said Donna Lowe, co-chair of programing for Mountain View. "

I briefly saw the emails fly around about the organization of the protest in conjunction with other Claremont human rights groups, but didn't catch anything about students being able to get extra credit for going. So I contacted the Mountain View Republican Club just to find out where that info came from and very kindly, Ken Allison (the groups president) emailed me back to let me know that Donna Lowe is a private citizen who was merely expressing her own opinion of the colleges and made an assumption based upon that. What it really came down to is that they needed someone to blame for their inconvenience (rightly so) but it was a very stupid thing for her to say and was based on some radically shaky rationale that Ken enlightened me with -- if you want the details, I'll give them to you but trust me, it's ridiculous and doesn't paint the group in a very intellectual light.

I suggested that they contact the Courier and have the statement retracted or at least cleared up seeing as on the day it was published, myself and another relative who attends Mudd received a call from a family member, concerned about the 5C's academic credibility as a result of what the quote insinuates. I might point out to you that although Calderon is the main focus, their intent was to demonize all of the 5C's, not just Pitzer. I made it very clear to them that whilst some of the schools certainly advocate activism of all kinds, none of the 5C's would ever bribe students with extra credit for doing so.

So there you have it, it was fabricated based on one angry lady's opinion of the 5C's.

Just wanted to clear it up since you had asked about it in your report.

Good luck on your finals man!

[Name withheld]