I took this photo moments after the
Cory Doctorow talk before the Athenaeum. I think it pretty nicely sums up the Athenaeum's position on free content. In effect, it's only free when they say it is. I've long asked why, but I ask it again now.
The way the policy now works is that if you want to record a speaker you have to go to
Bonnie Snortum, the Ath director, who then allegedly asks the speaker if it is okay to record. To the best of my knowledge I am the only person that bothers asking.
This policy is the case,
even if you know the speaker,
even if the speaker gives you total permission in writing,
even if he signs the form saying that the material may go up on the school's crummy website,
even if you get the permission of the director of the department that is bringing the speaker to campus.
If it is held in the Ath, you need Snortum's permission to record. Why?
This is the rule even though I laid out why this rule is stupid over a year ago. The college sells itself to prospective students on the basis of the Athenaeum, but their parents -- who, in most cases pay for the students' education -- have to wait months, if ever, that material is uploaded. Moreover if the speaker says something newsworthy, it often falls to intrepid bloggers like yours truly to direct the campus to it. I(I have to rely on my notes because as a student journalist it is against school policy for me to take a recording to protect myself against libel, though I confess when a particularly big speaker comes, I record anyways and worry about the consequences later.)
As someone who routinely watches C-Span and sees lectures by prominent persons given before universities, I've long wondered why Claremont McKenna doesn't cut a deal to sell its content or access. It wouldn't be hard to do.
Steve Grove CMC '00 is the political director at YouTube so perhaps he would be amenable to whatever content we have, but there can be little doubt that we don't avail ourselves of this huge opportunity to promote the school.
Think about it. You could have a seal with CMC down at bottom and get the advertising the school covets while you also affect the nation's discourse. Covet, you say, may be a strong word, but I think it's apt. President Pamela Gann, for insistence, okayed giving
John-Clark Levin and
Jason Soll (both CMC '12) $10,000 to promote the college and Levin's handshaking competition.
This policy looks likely not to change. I am, in fact, the reason that this rule exists of no recording exists. Last year using my Flip camera I recorded speakers with -- of course -- their permission at the Athenaeum and put them on YouTube. You can see my YouTube channel
here.
Jeremy Merrill CMC '12 -- when he
isn't lying about his professional qualifications -- called me out for it in front of the Ath by looking directly at me, modulating his voice at the part when he said audio and video recordings aren't allowed. (I caught his stare and stared him down. He broke it afterwards.)
Tonight was different, but as this photo illustrates, but still, I'm scratching my head wondering why. I'm especially wondering why as I have to turn in my thesis on April 11th to be archived for all time
electronically. Like all seniors on campus, I didn't consent to this rule when I applied -- the material was to be stored only in the library and then for about five years -- but I am still expected to comply nonetheless.
This policy shift vexes me greatly as I think the material that I produce is important, but potentially politically controversial. (You're shocked, I know...) In writing material that is provocative, I join a long list of Claremont McKenna alumni.
There's White House employee
Rhonda Carter CMC '02's argument in favor of reparations in
“Blacks in the United States, Reparations, and the Search for Healing,” Craig McPherson's defense of the Bush era foreign policy, Adam Kokesh CMC '06's about his travails and tribulations as a Marine in Iraq,
Ilan Wurman CMC '09-'10's discussion of the neo-cons and Jimmy Carter's foreign policy, or
Helena Bottemiller CMC '09's arguments in favor of still more regulation of our food.
I mention these, though I could have mentioned many more, as indicative that the school for politics often produces theses that are, well, political, and as someone who has paid his bills at Claremont these past few years as an opposition researcher, I can tell you that having everyone's thesis accessible online will be a treasure trove of information that will be entirely useful. I may -- just because I can -- download the entire collection of theses and sell the information at a later date when someone runs for political office later on down the line.
And why -- beyond being a clever jerk -- shouldn't I? Why shouldn't anyone else? After all, the college has decided that everyone's intellectual property -- their thesis, "the culmination of their academic career," to use Ms.
Elizabeth Morgan, the registrar's phrase -- is to be accessible to the entire world. The world cannot see your papers, your transcripts, your tests, but they can see your thesis. Why they don't even need to go and check it out!
Of course you can do what I suspect a lot of students will do and that is ask for a waiver. I'm in the process of asking for one right now, but even that could harm me down the line. If everyone's thesis is online, but yours isn't, won't that show that you are hiding something? Next they'll want to see your birth certificate! (For the record, I have a copy of mine in my bureau drawer.)
Not considering a life in the lime light? You forget that politics can be high -- and low. When you go off into today's job market, your thesis, as Elizabeth Morgan says, can
help you get a job out of college. But it can also
stop you from getting a job out of college when your hitherto private views differ from the views of your prospective employer. This was a problem in the olden times, too, but your employer had to actually go to the reading room, find your thesis (which was probably missorted),
read it (if they cared to) and then return it. The costs, in other words, were prohibitive. Now, thanks to our registrar, they can go to Google and find it and peruse it at their leisure.
Moreover, today's CMC students, with the possible exception of the freshmen, had no clue that the "culmination" of their academic career was going to be so promiscuously shared with the world. They might have made different decisions as to who they wrote it under, whether or not they applied for honors, or even what they studied.
One thing is for sure though: Theses are going to be
very boring when written under the internet's harsh light. And nobody wants more boredom right before they go out into the real world, which is seemingly satiated with it.
