To the Bucknell Community,
This morning, the campus awoke to a beautiful display of color expressing core themes, ideas, and questions of a liberal arts education. At 8am, students, faculty, and staff could be seen pausing along the quad to take in chalked messages such as these below:
Lose your religion, find God | Be realistic, demand the impossible |
When was the last time you thought Critically? | Every view of things that is not strange is false. |
Trivial sex=Trivial Relationships | Humans are violent when oppressed, gentle when free |
When examined, answer with questions. | Dont beg for the right to live, take It. |
Think, then do | We are not post-racial. |
Time is money. Think about that for a second. | Exams = Servility, Social Promotion, Hierarchy |
By 9am, the university administration had ordered facilities to remove the students’ artwork.
This act speaks to the broader power-washing--literal and figurative--of critical expression on Bucknell’s campus. It speaks to an overreach of administrative control bleeding over into the daily lives and activities of students. At present, chalking requires approval by Events Management; an unwarranted regulation and monitoring of free speech at our University.
Expressions of hate aside, we the undersigned believe that the administration does not have the right to determine what is and is not acceptable speech on our campus. We believe this to be counter to Bucknell’s mission statement which encourages “critical thinking...characterized by continued intellectual exploration, creativity, and imagination.” Whether conservative or liberal, we all agree on the common imperative to speak our minds.
Faculty and students of all stripes will come together on the quad at 11AM on Friday to exercise our right to free ‘chalk’ expression. Please join us and write what you wish. We ask you to sign this document in support.
- Tamara Hijazi
- Tess Smith
- Danielle Antonellis
- Erin Clark
- Mattis Pacaud
- Christian Robertson
- Max Fathauer
- Jorden Sneed
- Evan Filion
- Dominic Scicchitano
- Taryn Urban
- Dina El-Mogazi
- Adrian Mulligan, Geography
- Emma Gaalaas Mullaney
- John Buggeln
- Paul Susman
- Joanna Huxster
- Indigo Clingerman
- Benoit razet
- Greg Adams
- Paul Castro
- David Kristjanson-Gural
- Will Kerber
- Rivka Ulmer
- Chau Le
- Jesse Lopez
- Rebecca Meyers
- Ben Vollmayr-Lee
- Katharina Vollmayr-Lee
- Saundra Kay Morris
- Harold Schweizer
- Andrew Stuhl, Environmental Studies
- Jennifer Kosmin
- George Exner
- Mehmet Dosemeci, History
- Lauren Dolinsky
- Molly McGuire, Chemistry
- Brianna Healey Derr
- Sasha Weilbaker
- John Hunter
- Anna Kell, ART
- Katie Faull
- Leslie Patrick
- David Rojas
- Nino Antadze
- Evan Castillo
- Bill Flack, PSYC
- Robert Rosenberg
- Chloe D’Addio
- Jake Guarino
- Sierra Magnotta
- Caroline Edelman
- Carol Wayne White
- Sophie Bromand
- Kyle Bray
- Jackie Messina
- Layla Gordon
- Michelle Johnson
- Richard Waller
- Maureen Maclean
- Ellen Herman, Geology
- Christine Cha
- Richard Henne-Ochoa
- Amanda Wooden
- Stephanie Purnell
- Margaret Cronin
- Caroline Loftus
- Anushikha Sharma
- Glynis Carr
- Nikki Young