Although I felt that former Dean of Student Dean Huang was often feckless, I appreciated that I was getting to know him. Many conservative students on campus thought that even if Huang was not sympathetic, at least he wasn't damaging. "Better the devil I know than the one I don't," or so the saying goes. But now Mary Spellman is that new Dean of Students, what do we know about her? And is she really a devil? Might she be even better than Dean Huang? For conservatives, there might be some good news as our college lurches still further to the left: Ms. Spellman is one of us. As dean of St. Mary's College, she gave $2000 to President Bush's reelection campaign in 2004. At Sarah Lawrence, she gave $250 to John McCain in 2007. She also gave two political contributions to Republicans in 2005.
Here's what I could find out about her record from back at Sarah Lawrence College. This article is from The Sadie Lou Standard, December 3, 2007 edition and written by an anonymous senator. (I typed it up, so please excuse any typographical errors and the emphasis is mine.)
Mary Spellman is a kind, intelligent and thoughtful person when you interact with her0 person to person as opposed to student to administrator. I have actually been boggled many times to note the difference in her when she is in “business” mode. While Mary would never overtly discriminate or judge someone, it is very clear that she handles Student Affairs very moralistically and has a clear sense of what this campus “ought” to be. Many students complain on a near-daily basis about the change in, namely, the atrophying of creative and chaotic energy on this campus. I think that this loss of a queered joie de vivre can actually be traced back to Mary’s entrance on this campus. Her disdain for sexually-imbued or alcohol-containing events on this campus is notorious.
From her hand in the final death of the Coming Out Dance to her hawk-like presence at the recent Nancy Pants Barn Dance, it is clear that she seems to judge the collective maturity of the Sarah Lawrence Campus on the basis of how sober we appear on the weekends. Responsible, periodic, socially-endorsed drinking seems to be a concept that completely eludes Mary. This was abundantly clear when she asked Student Senate to justify the “need” for alcohol at Senate-funded events. There are dozens of sociological and psychological accounts for the role of alcohol in college socialization; I think it would be more appropriate for her to have consulted these sources and the alcohol policies of other like-minded schools to determine this answer as opposed to challenging Senate on the spot to defend age-old methods of youthful socialization. The way Senate was questioned made us feel infantilized, judged, and radical for proposing a very simple beer garden concept for the Halloween events sponsored by Senate. Her judgment was both demoralizing and infuriating. She has succeeded at creating a school-generational change on this campus, putting students on the defensive for events and behaviors that occur unquestioned at other campuses nation-wide. We were the avant-garde, we are now cloistered in bedrooms devoting more time to being angry at the school’s oppression than creating the new edge of possibilities, as our venerable predecessors did for decades. I would be fascinated to poll the student body and find out how many students know that the Pub used to be an actual pub, serving beer and providing an actual social epicenter for the campus, as opposed to the mostly-vacant and dismal place it now is.
As a Senator, I feel as though Senate as a whole is being put in a position of advocating for things that once were. We are trying to restore a sense of lightness and socialization to the campus that has been purposefully extinguished by administrative policies since the late 1990s. The administration wants us to fit the pictures that appear in our admissions materials, which I think is a marked difference from the Sarah Lawrence of old, which was a beacon, a safe haven for the marginalized and brilliant who needed firm ground to explore their unique minds on a campus that was safe and pedagogically stimulating. I think it is extremely disconcerting to come to this campus now and feel as though it is stifling and subtly conformist, as I fear it must be in order to expand the ever-discussed endowment. The fact that graffiti art, temporary art installations, and banners now need to go through the Committee on Student Life is indicative of the censorship and loss of confidence the school has in its students to make innovative and provocative statements. Making a statement is no longer encouraged.
The epicenter for this Sarah Lawrence sanitation overwhelmingly seems to radiate from Mary Spellman’s office, as Student Affairs asserts itself more and more as the place that students must run to in order to seek endorsement to do anything extracurricular on this campus. How free is the Free Speech Wall? How innovative or penetrating is Student Affair’s[sic?] programming? How many people do you know who have felt personally misunderstood, judged, or stepped on by Mary Spellman?
While Ken Schneck was just as moralistic as Mary was, at least when he was here, the school had semi-competent drug, alcohol, and sex- educational programming. Thank God for David Moyer, who is now the only stop-gap measure for incoming first year classes to be socially educated.
Even then, however, David said that he was coerced by Mary to insert abstinence education into his routine. Students don’t need to be taught abstinence from sex or alcohol nearly as much as they need to be taught how to incorporate these very human elements into their lives when they feel they are ready. How dare administrators on this campus enhance that message on a campus that is full of people trying to overcome this negative programming to create good, vibrant, and productive lives?
The generations of students who came before us fought hard to self-create this campus as a place free of judgment and full of innovation. We are backsliding in the hands of administrators more gifted at paperwork than appreciating and actively enriching the full diversity of the students of Sarah Lawrence. We come here because the pedagogy allows us to self-create our education, ourselves, and the world in which we work, live, and learn. It makes me utterly sick to think that the freedom to self-create is slowly and seemingly-purposefully being eroded by administrators like Mary Spellman, who are shepherding a confused-but-apathetic student body closer and closer to a contrived vision of Sarah Lawrence prestige.
3 comments:
Charles,
From the sounds of the Senator, Spellman implemented a number of changes while she was DoS at Sarah Lawrence. Usually we use the word 'conservative' to describe someone who respects tradition, and is reluctant to make changes.
Fair enough, but we might also use the word to describe people with a sense of a conservative thoughts on human nature.
Just so you get a clearer picture, I was at SLC for all four years Mary was, and her 'politics' in the Republican sense never really came out.
What did come out, however, was a moral puritanism (which I don't necessarily equate with conservatism). Severe intolerance for drinking, even when a student was of age. Punishments of a draconian nature as compared to whatever infraction was committed. A punitive approach, rather than attempting to find any sort of 'teaching moment'. I have more details, if you want.
But also, she definitely calmed down last year (both her and my final year). Maybe it was that the last students to have experienced someone else as dean had graduated, or who knows what else. I can only imagine what she's wrought upon your school.
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