By Heather Miller

What defines a good teacher? One who inspires us to do great things, to go on and be better people. When we were in elementary school, and high school even, this was a good enough
definition. Teachers were people we looked up to, many of us had these teachers all day, every day for at least one year. At the least we had these teachers for one period every day, for a
year. We saw these models of what we strove to become more than we saw our parents. They filled in blanks in our aspirations and imaginations in ways that our parents could no
longer. Our teachers took us to higher intellectual levels and charged us to stimulate the throbbing organ that sat atop our shoulders. Many of our past teachers are to blame for our
career leanings, good lectures inspired us to do further reading, awesome presentations gave us our respect for the subjects we have now dedicated this portion of our lives to study.
Good teachers do all of these things and often know not what affect they have on each of us. 

Now that we are in college, however, the role of teacher takes on a new meaning. We no longer call our teachers Mr. This or Mrs. That, it’s now Professor and Doctor. Our professors not
only have an obligation to teach us, but they have an obligation to our university as well. While our elementary and high school teachers were often judged by the success of their
students, our professors are judged also by how much they contribute to the world of academia. A professor’s job is not as simple as coming to work every day, giving a lecture or two
and going home to a pile of papers to grade. Professors serve dual roles, at the least, as department chairs, as novelists, as researchers, the list goes on. Our professors have an
obligation to give our school the name it has. 

Despite what many may want to believe, the students are not what makes a school great, they are what adds to the greatness a school already has. Why did many of us choose our
school? Because of how great we thought our respective departments were. When we were pre-frosh sitting in on classes, our lasting impressions were not of the students sitting quietly
around us, but of the person standing at the head of the class dispensing his or her knowledge to us. We chose this school also for the benefits that we feel we will receive after we
graduate and have a degree with Wesleyan on it. Who gives Wesleyan our great name? Our professors. 

I write this because I am puzzled by the activities of late surrounding a certain professor. Why this one? Is he the only professor on campus that inspires greatness? I will admit that I
have never taken any of his classes but at this point I think that I am afraid of what will happen to me once I walk through the door on the first day. Why has this professor been elevated
to such a godlike status? I am confused because I feel that if the powers that be felt that this professor was worth all of this attention, they would have already done something about it.
What do our Wesleyan protestors hope to accomplish? Do they honestly believe that by starving themselves the administration will renege on a process that has been in the works from
day one? We have been given information that explains the situation in its entirety and I feel that we have been, perhaps, given more information than we deserve. Why is it that our
student body feels that they have the right to demand changes to university decisions? This university that we chose because of its greatness. Yes, we can question administrative
action and we can also expect to be a part of the administrative process, but once a decision has been made and all voices have been heard is it still our place to demand that we have
things our way?

I walk by rally after rally and see flyers for protest after protest, and to what end? Is this really the most effective means of affecting change? We are at an institution of higher learning,
we take history and government classes in which we learn the end result of such actions and yet we choose to use such tactics anyway. I applaud this crowd for its conviction but as an
outsider of this cause, I fear that their efforts are in vain. It’s day 6 and by the time you read this it will be day 9. Is your health worth all of this? Are your parents paying this much money
for you to camp out on the lawn in honor of a teacher you had while dishonoring those professors you have now? 

We all put our trust in Wesleyan when we signed over 4 years of our lives and $100,000 of our parent’s hard earned money. We chose this school over others because of who we felt
Wesleyan could help us become. They trusted us when they accepted us into their community – why, because they knew that we would help keep them great. We trusted them on the
day we put our letter of acceptance in the mail; why not trust this decision now?
 

Miller is a member of the class of 2003.