Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee

 

2009-2010 Academic Year

CIC is pleased to announce "Walls" as its 2009-10 theme.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'
--From "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost

Walls. Fences. Borders. Limits. Boundaries. Barriers.

For the 2009-2010 academic year, the Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee is pleased to announced that it has chosen the theme of "Walls."

2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall; the 20^th anniversary of Tiananmen Square; the December 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States. While historic/political/geographical topics to consider in the context of the theme suggest themselves immediately, it is our intention that Walls encompass the entire Cortland intellectual community. We have chosen a broad theme, one that opens itself to a variety of physical, metaphysical, epistemological, chemical, biological, historical, political and theoretical interpretations.

First, a question: What is a wall? To what purpose is it constructed, maintained; and who, as Frost asks, "is it walling in or walling out?" What happens, as John Mellencamp (or Joshua-take your pick) sings, "when the walls come tumblin' down."

To begin the campus conversation, we have generated a list of ideas for potential topics. These are meant to be provocative, not prescriptive.

*What "glass ceilings" prevent the ascension of certain groups? To what extent have these ceilings been shattered?

*As globalization has moved in to fill the gap created by the end of the Cold War, are we now living in a wall-less world?

*In the 1950's, pilots chased the speed of sound, and eventually overtook it. What other scientific achievements involve the shattering of barriers?

*SUNY Cortland contains many barriers to access for People with Disabilities. How is the college, as physical institution, a wall?

*To what extent do ghettos still exist in the USA?

*The climbing of Mt. Everest and the breaking of the four-minute mile both mark apexes of human achievement. What remains?

*The human body has systems of barriers to disease. How are those barriers sustained? What breaks them down?

*The embargo against Cuba is in its fifth decade. For how much longer will we segregate ourselves from an island 90 miles off our shores?

*Both Israel and the U.S. are building border walls. To what effective end?

*Many see the election of Barack Obama as boundary-breaking. But in what ways?

*We build prisons to hold those who sin against us. What are the parameters of criminal behaviour? Who determines what is criminal?

*Is the designation of mentally ill a way of protecting or oppressing those afflicted? Who knows what the boundaries of "sane" are?

This is a starter list. We believe that dozens of activities, ideas, speakers, films, books, and campus-wide discussions will give us the opportunity to examine how we operate both within and outside of walls.

To give focus to our year-long discussion, we are hosting a "campus read" featuring Marjane Satrapi's award-winning memoir Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. We invite faculty to use Persepolis as a class text and we invite faculty, students, and staff to join one of the many book chats to be organized in the Fall 2009 semester.