The Flat Hat

Letters to the Editor (Mar. 21)

Disappointing speaker

To the Editor:

The College has been through a hellish time this year. Our leadership is gone and we attempt to move forward. One of the few bright spots for seniors was the upcoming commencement speaker. Tony Blair, Stephen Colbert and J.K. Rowling were dangled before us, and if ever there was a time for someone of their stature to come and inspire us, the time was now.

Unfortunately for us, the decision was less than earthshaking. Our speaker is none other than Mike Tomlin, a rookie head coach in the NFL out of Pittsburgh. After Robert Gates last year, it seemed that we could go no lower in the obscure graduation speaker hierarchy. This year, we were supposed to have a household name that we actually give a damn about; instead, we get Tomlin.

There are times I wonder if the College really wants the students to get motivated. Do they actually want us to remember our time here fondly? To cap off this hell of a year, the best they could give us is Mike Tomlin. Was Carrot Top taken?

— Alec Newman ’07

Unsupported endorsement

To the Editor:

While reading The Flat Hat’s March 14 Staff Editorial entitled “Hopkins for President,” we became perplexed, not by your decision to endorse Ms. Hopkins, but rather the reasoning for that decision, or lack thereof. The evidence used to back this endorsement was scant and contradictory.

You say Hopkins/Pilchen made progress on revising the three-person rule because the mayor is “open to negotiation.” This is underwhelming, to say the least. Your editorial follows that disappointment with the following caveat: “The degree to which this change of heart can be attributed to the administration is debatable” and offers little else that the team has accomplished. You offer your support to the “experienced” candidates who have fallen short of fulfilling the only promise mentioned in your article, and the only progress that has been made you admit may have nothing to do with them.

This indifference to backing assertions with facts is echoed in “The Incumbents” as The Flat Hat offers more claims of progress, but does not provide a single, concrete example of said progress.
You then criticize the challengers, Adam Rosen and Emily Nunez, for not addressing the three-person rule. There’s more to the Student Assembly and to student life than one city of Williamsburg ordinance, and the readers of The Flat Hat would be better served by a more thorough discussion of issues.

We write neither to support Rosen/Nunez nor to criticize Hopkins/Pilchen, but rather to encourage more thoughtful, better-written endorsements from The Flat Hat editorial staff.

— William Brownlee ’09 and Charles Williams ’08