Hello students and faculty of Fairfield University, young and old, big and small, my name as you may have already guessed is Frank. I am a commuting undergraduate engineering member of the student body. (Phew! What a mouthful!) Basically I’m here to dish the campus dirt and make sure you get a weekly dose of entertainment to sift you through another week of the same-old-same-old. I’ll do this through a weekly (or semiweekly) commentary section of none other than yours truly. Each week I’ll talk about pressing issues like how to get the attention of that girl in Western Civilization class, how to make great first impressions with the elderly or how to keep a sense of peace with your roommate who throws all of her crap on your side of the room. What a jerk!

But in all seriousness, where do I begin? The cafeteria? The FUSA election? The freshman enrollment rate being higher than last year despite already having such a high enrollment? That girl in my Western Civilization class? Gosh the possibilities are endless, but something this first week of classes really caught my attention. The futility of arguing with your favorite professor and where do we draw the line when it comes to how much control a teacher actually does have.

Quite frankly it is very simple, the teacher, like our favorite president George Bush is the decider. He says what goes, what doesn’t go and even what sort of goes. For instance if the teacher tells you to stop talking about how drunk you were last night in Psychology or how drunk you will be tonight in Psychology. Typically, that is a respectable demand; nobody wants to hear you talk anyways.

But there are different kinds of authority such as where do we draw the line when it comes to whether or not a student disagrees with a teacher’s position in a religion class. This week in my study of Eastern and Asian religion class a student was deeply offended by a teacher’s position in a religion class.

Student: “What do you mean there are contradictions inside the bible!! You’re wrong.”

Professor: “Well let me ask you this son, are you the teacher?”

Student: “Well no, but.”

Professor: “Oh well you better step down or take a new section son.”

So maybe the conversation didn’t go exactly like that. But it was to some extent, the question lies in where do we draw the line between a students opinion and what is being taught. This is not a new problem; it goes back to Darwinism a major controversy in our society. What do I think? I think that argument produces inspiring and intriguing thoughts, but I don’t think it should take place between teacher and student about the main idea of an academic course. If all the founding arguments of a course revolve around a single point a student should realize if he or she wants to take part in that course after considering this point. You shouldn’t take courses that you are offended by or disagree with and you shouldn’t go into courses you disagree with and argue with a professor either. He is just doing his job as best as he can and he can’t help it that it contradicts with what you believe in. Nobody is forcing you to take one religious study over another anyway. If you don’t want to learn about Asian religions, you don’t have to. There is so much more I could talk about but I’m afraid I’ve already went over my space limit. So until next week, take your vitamins, do your homework and always, always weigh in the Frank Factor.

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