Students wait in the Comforts line at lunch time on Wednesday. Jack Cote | Collegian
Michigan’s oldest college newspaper
Vol. 146 Issue 3 - September 8, 2022
The classical education graduate students pose after their History of Liberal Education class in Kendall Hall. Jack Cote | Collegian
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College hosts panel with Academy of Science and Freedom fellows By Annabel Peltzer Collegian Freelancer
New classical education master's program begins this year with 11 graduate students By Olivia Pero Assistant Editor The first students in Hillsdale College’s new Graduate School of Classical Education have arrived. If all goes well, they’ll earn master’s degrees in the spring of 2024. “I'm incredibly excited about this program because I believe it can be a gold standard for what a graduate program in classical education should be,” Assistant Professor of Education David Diener said. There are 11 students in the group. For the first semester, they are taking three core curriculum classes together. Beginning in the second semester, the students will have their choice of elective courses. “The classes in this program are extremely high quality and very rigorous like the rest of Hillsdale classes,” Program Coordinator Jaime Boerema '22 said. “It's really important for the cohort to have a strong community, and that's one of the reasons that all the students are taking those first courses together as they learn these fundamental and beautiful things before they branch out into areas of interest.” The three core classes
this semester are History of Liberal Education taught by Assistant Professor of Education Erik Ellis, Philosophy of Education taught by Diener, and Humane Letters taught by Associate Vice President for Curriculum and Professor of English David Whalen. “All of the classes are amazing,” Rebecca Willis '18, a student in the program said. “They really are. I'm not just saying that.” Willis taught in Kentucky for four years at Highlands Latin School, a classical Christian school. When Dean of the Graduate School of Classical Education Daniel Coupland first talked to Willis about the program, Willis said the program had everything she wanted. “During my four years of practical experience in the classroom, I came across a lot of questions,” Willis said. “When I looked at the course list and was talking to Dr. Coupland, I knew these courses would answer my questions.” According to Coupland, the first cohort was originally going to have 10 students. “We had so many quality applicants that we decided to take 11,” Coupland said. “Nine of them have some connection to Hillsdale College: eight were undergraduates and one
was a graduate student.” There are more Hillsdale graduates than non-Hillsdale graduates in this cohort, Coupland said. “That makes sense because they experienced the Hillsdale education at the undergraduate level and were drawn to the school and its ideas,” Coupland said. “When we opened up the graduate program, these Hillsdale graduates already knew about the program but were also interested in continuing their Hillsdale experience in graduate school.” According to Coupland, the program wants to attract classes of 15-20 students in future years. “Depending on the year it may skew a little higher or lower in terms of undergrad graduates of the college,” Coupland said. “We think it's probably healthy that the program has a mix of both Hillsdale undergrads and people who have gone and completed their undergrads at other institutions.” According to Diener, the new program aligns with the undergraduate education program and Hillsdale’s philosophy of education. “The biggest reason why classical schools close is because of poor leadership,” Diener said. “As institutions, it's incredibly important to
have well prepared teachers in the classrooms because the heart of education is in a classroom. If there aren't good administrators running the school who understand the mission and vision of classical education, the school isn't going to be able to fulfill its mission.” Willis said she would like to return to teaching after graduating from this program and then would consider working in administration. “I love being a part of my students’ days, and I love them being a part of my day,” Willis said. “However, I do think that there is a great need for good leaders in education, and I can see administration in my future.” Teaching experience is not a prerequisite for the program, but it is recommended, Coupland said. “We think that it will be a much richer experience for students if they have teaching experience,” Coupland said. “It could be a year, six months, or a couple of years." The majority of the people who applied for the program have K-12 teaching experience, but not all of them do.
See Education A2
The United States faces a national emergency of scientific distrust, said Dr. Scott Atlas, a founding fellow at Hillsdale’s Academy for Science and Freedom. Atlas joined Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff to discuss COVID-19 policy failures and the scientific status quo at a colloquium held last week in Plaster Auditorium by ASF. “The government and what I call the credential class leading these essential institutions — and I mean public health agencies, universities, doctors, scientists, schools, the media — have been exposed,” Atlas said. “They've been exposed as non-experts and politicized.” Early in the COVID pandemic, Atlas along with Bhattacharya and Kulldorff developed alternative methods to the COVID guidelines of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. In 2021, the three partnered with the college to create ASF. “The goal of the academy is to teach, just like the college,” College President Larry Arnn said. “I’m proud of those guys.” According to its website, the academy aims to help repair the scientific system by “educating the American people about the free exchange of scientific ideas and the proper relationship between freedom and science in the pursuit of truth.” The academy will host lectures, offer internships, and propose and promote implementable policies within science, Atlas said. “There is now an unprecedented denial of fact rampant in science and public health leadership,” Atlas said. “As a society, during the pandemic, we have broken the social contract with our most precious resource, our children, harming them directly and failing as role models.” The fellows reported that minorities, children, and poor communities car-
ried the burden of COVID lockdowns. “It was poor families that faced the worst of it,” Bhattacharya said. “And it is poor families in blue states that closed their schools that caused the pandemic learning-loss that is happening.” When the fellows began laying out alternative strategies, they discovered how closely grant money was linked to scientific journals and publications. To draw accurate conclusions based on data that was more objective, they analyzed academic peer reviews that were distanced from the monetized and politically biased “cartel system.” “There needs to be a bright wall between scientific funders making decisions about who to fund and their participation in health policy,” Bhattacharya said. “It is a deep conflict of interest that silences scientists, creates an illusion of consensus that doesn't exist, fools the American people, and fools the world population into doing things that are very, very dangerous.” Some attending the talk questioned the value of salvaging and reforming failed institutions with deep-seated financial, media, and political ties. Ph.D. candidate Brett Waite asked the panelists why they are striving to restore faith in public institutions and what makes them deserve it. “I do not think they deserve our trust or our respect,” Kulldorff said. “We have to restore the integrity of science and with our generation of scientists, I’m not very hopeful. But future generations hopefully can restore how science should operate.” Atlas explained the necessity to create new scientific institutions that challenge the status quo and preserve scientific truth. “If we are a society that doesn't believe in facts anymore,” Atlas said. “I don't even know where to go from there. We need to fix science. It's broken.”
Metz addresses dining hall lunch lines by adding improved equipment By Nathan Stanish Collegian Reporter Metz Culinary Management has promised shorter lines at the Knorr Dining Hall thanks to new equipment. Alexis Kwon, senior marketing manager for Metz, said the company introduced additional card readers to speed up the process for workers and students. “We implemented a new technology solution that allows for faster check-in and retail purchasing,” Kwon said.
At first, the machines did the opposite. “Metz really thought it was going to be faster but I don’t think they realized that both readers go in the same machine,” said Kelly Syllaba, a Metz employee who works the front desk at the dining hall. Because the two readers went into one machine, people in line had to wait for one of the two to process before swiping or scanning their ID. The swiping was another problem, according to Syllaba.
“A lot of people have to swipe twice, and swiping does take a little bit longer,” Syllaba said. Almost half of students still swipe their IDs, sometimes slowing down the line when the machine struggles to read the card. As a result of these problems, on Aug. 30, 2022, 200 students waited in a line that lasted for 15-20 minutes, limiting their time to eat before a 1 p.m. class. Metz, too, was “feeling the frustration” about the wait times, Kwon said. After meeting to discuss
some of the complaints and problems with the machines, Metz made two changes to the process. First, instead of using two reading machines connected to one processing machine, the front desk switched to one machine per processing machine. When either machine slows down, it no longer limits the other machine from processing. The second solution was technical. The machines took longer to process IDs because the machines store the student account information.
“We figured out how to dump the account information,” Syllaba said. Now that the workers regularly reset the machines, the processing goes faster for swipes and scans. Thanks to these improvements, lines have sped up significantly. On Sept. 6, 2022, 200 students waited in line during the noon rush, but the line only lasted for 10 minutes, disappearing by 12:06 p.m. For students looking to speed up lines even more, Kwon and Syllaba recommended switching to scan-
ning their IDs on the mobile app instead of swiping it. While physical IDs can wear down and fail to read, virtual IDs scan as long as the barcode is visible. Sophomore Abby Richardson said these improvements have been the difference between eating lunch or skipping it. “Before there were times I wasn’t able to get food,” Richardson said. “Now, I’m able to get into SAGA in a timely manner so I can actually get lunch and get to class.”