Alumni

LETTERS

Mental Health on Campus
Thank you for highlighting campus mental health in the summer 2008 article "Minding Our Students." It was inspiring and encouraging to read about the efforts of current students to destigmatize mental illness. It is especially shocking how prevalent these challenges can be during the college years, and I am pleased to see more avenues of support opening up for current and future Foresters.

There is a great life to be lived beyond the stress and strife that so often plague the college years, just as there is a rich and rewarding life beyond depression; but to reach it, people must realize that it is an illness that needs compassionate, professional care and strong support systems.

Jen Hoyer Minarik '04
Mundelein, Illinois

What Was Left Out
The article "Riots Revisited" and the online item "The Whole World Was Watching" (a press release for a photography exhibit by Ron Pownall '69, whose 1968 riot photos appeared in the article) were both fascinating. However, the fascination was not so much for the content of the articles as for what was left out.

How is it that the whole world was able to watch? Why is it that many days before the convention, CBS built scaffolding across the street from the Conrad Hilton Hotel along Michigan Avenue in Grant Park? Almost a week before the convention, I heard a lecture by Cook County Sheriff Joe Woods. He had classified information about a protest march at the convention. According to Woods, the size and duration of the protest would make it impossible for the Chicago Police Department to maintain the peace because the leaders of the protest did not intend to be peaceful. Thus, county and state police and even the Army Reserve would be called on for added support.

The U.S. Constitution protects peaceful assembly. On the flip side, an assembly that is not intended to be peaceful is prosecutable. If the local peacekeeping establishment believes an assembly is likely to become non-peaceful, they can order that assembly to disperse.

My wife was a hospital surgical nurse in 1968. Several of her fellow nurses were horrified at the violence so they assembled a first aid station just off Michigan Avenue. While there, they found several instances where they would wipe the blood off the head of a protester only to discover that there was no wound underneath the blood. Some protesters boasted how they had sprayed a cop with oven cleaner. Some even proudly proclaimed how they filled a plastic bag with their own excrement and hit a cop in the face with it.

The nurses could not find anyone in authority with whom they could call attention to their discoveries. The news reporters were not interested. To them the story was in the street where there were television cameras.

Jim Beddia '60
The Villages, Florida

I was very disappointed by your article on the Chicago riots of 1968. You seem to glorify the rioters and knock the police. While the police may have overreacted, may I remind you that the rioters, almost by
definition, were breaking the law?

John Thomas '60
Tucson, Arizona

Out of the Park
I am writing to let you know how spectacular I thought your most recent issue was. Normally, I flip to the back to read class notes and glance at an article here and there. But I feel with this issue, you knocked it out of the park.

The nuclear power article ("Going Nuclear, Again?") was very interesting to read as it's an area most people don't know a lot about. It was heartening to see a conference on a topic of such significance at the College and students getting a chance to participate.

I also enjoyed the article about the Chicago riots ("Riots Revisited") and the perspective you gave from people who experienced it. The photos helped accentuate the points in the article. About the article on mental illness ("Minding Our Students"), I was happy to see there are students who feel strongly about this issue and are willing to help inform others about it.

Please keep adding articles that are insightful this way and relevant to our lives.

Chris Alexander '95
Los Angeles, California

HOW TO SUBMIT A LETTER

We'd love to hear from you! Please submit your letters to:

Lindsay Beller, Spectrum Editor, Lake Forest College, 555 N. Sheridan Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045

E-mail: spectrum@lakeforest.edu

Fax: 847-735-6272.

Letters may be edited for length and clarity.