Kosslyn: Leave elitism at Casino Night
Casino Night, that annual role-playing spectacular, is tomorrow. Hundreds of Yalies will put on our best renditions of old-world gentry as we gamble and dance the night away. It is a fun occasion — and also a small component of our training in navigating part of the elite world. The exemplars of banter, dress and expression on display at Casino Night are opportunities for us to learn to be more effective elites. But the elite world is changing, and Yale is falling behind the times — which may not be so terrible.
Allow me to explain myself. Elites are defined by their...
In other news, Casino night has been cancelled and replaced with "Elite Night". I'm not sure whether this makes Justin's article less relevant, or more...
We must never mistake training to lead for elitism. Yale gives you nothing if not the character to fight for what you believe is right. If you, through strong alumni networks, ability, or chance, are placed in a position of influence, let hope that having been here, having been taught at Yale, may even in the smallest degree, make your more likely to make the honorable & correct choice when your time comes.
blah blah blah geeks rule blah blah blah numbers are cool.
- cs major
"As a liberal arts institution, Yale has traditionally shied away from teaching practical numerical fluency."
A true liberal arts education takes numeracy just as seriously as literacy.
The neglect of numeracy is Yale's failure to provide a liberal arts education. The reporter shows himself to be a good example of that. What does he think the seven liberal arts are? Four of them are mathematical. Not that this means much if you can't count past the first three.
This is a terrible article. A few things:
1) I never once wore dapper clothes to casino night. The nicest outfit I ever wore was from the salvation army. Two years I wore a t-shirt and tie. Please stop reading into casino night as a metaphor for collegiate elitism
2) matching your belt and shoes is not trivial. Maybe you show up to work wearing crocks and pants with elastic in the waist, but appropriate footwear is certainly not "elitist" nor does it say anything about our desire for power. It says that you can see and identify matching colors.
3) Are you insinuating that knowing how to interpret statistics is elitist? I point to the growing need for quantitative understanding as strongly meritous - "traditional" elitists never had the need for numerical understanding as that work was left to peons and number crunchers. In today's world, the smart few who studied quantitative reasoning are the new upper class - the hedge fund quant guys who (until recently) ran the world.