HalfSours

Bennington College is having an early St. Patrick’s Day party whose theme is “Catholic My Balls”. No kidding. I should note (woefully) that Bennington is my alma mater.

Bennington funds about a dozen student parties per semester, one called “Bacchanal”, another, which is affectionally (though no longer officially) called “Fuck a Freshman Night”, and now this. Incidentally, in 2004 the same house, Kilpatrick House, spurred a campus-wide protest over the administration’s forced removal of hundreds of clippings from porno magazines displayed in the communal living room. The “porn tree”, was apparently a decades-old tradition in Kilpatrick House, and they just couldn’t let it go down without a fight in good conscience.

There is no chapel, chaplain, visiting minister, religious club, or anything remotely of that nature on campus. There is therefore no religious outlet to turn to when the administration and fellow students antagonize to this measure — and this party is practically a crap on a dinner plate. Not even the Roving Rabbis will touch the place; the administration offers no support, and the student body is just rampantly hostile.

It is worth noting, that the school offers no courses in religion — not even so much as a survey, but “Music Healing” is an entire curricular discipline.

I am led to wonder if the administration’s academic rejection, and condoning of religious antagonism, is the reason why Bennington, which once enjoyed a great reputation, and was a heel in the neck of Radcliffe’s ranking, has slipped far down to the 104th rank. The Bennington College homepage actually heralded a few weeks ago: “Bennington College Named One of ‘The Best 368 Colleges’ By Princeton Review”. Could it be that alienating large swaths of its potential applicant pool (85.8% percent of Americans belong to an affiliated faith, 36% of Northeastern adults are Catholics) not to mention donors, is actually bad practice for a university?

It is true that by rejecting the installation of a Hillel house, refusing to fund any Jewish activities on campus, and having no recruitment initiatives in long Island, Bennington does keep out the rabble of affiliated Jews. But could it be that, by eschewing moneyed Jews, they are missing out on building a competitive endowment? What about Mayflower money? WASPs like a good chapel on their kids’ campus as much as the next guy. And they don’t like the mention of anatomical “Balls” in print.

Lest Bennington neglect to make policy amendments, parents may continue to ask; How can a university, which is hostile to the practice of religion, and neglects religion academically, provide $48,980 per year’s worth of the free exchange of ideas?

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 7:29 am and is filed under Fun for Liberals, My Fanaticism Trumps Your Fanaticism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.