Letters, historical texts stolen from Methodist Archives

Anonymous, I have an art major friend and I have heard stories about vandalism of student artwork in DOYO, but that is for another article.

Jackie, that's fine that you disagree with anonymity. That's what forums are for after all, discussing our various opinions, no? I will let your thoughts about hostile and snarky comments be received elsewhere since that does not reflect my posts-- though I do certainly agree that there are those who use anonymity for this purpose. I stand by my experiences of the judgmental nature of the Drew community as reason for anonymity here. To each their own.

Alumna 09, I disagree with your defense of anonymity. Especially on the internet, it breeds hostile commenters who have no consequences for their remarks, and whose online discussions accomplish nothing. If a person can't stand behind what they say, then perhaps they shouldn't comment. Your own anonymity may protect you from "verbal abuse", but it also lets you hide behind snarky comments, which lend nothing to the discussion. As you do have a point in that this is not the best place for this discussion (although in my opinion, it was relevant), I won't say anymore on the topic here.

Jackie, I understand where you are coming from about the lessened credibility of an anonymous comment, but I don't think banter on an amateur newspaper site is demanding much credibility to begin with. I chose to remain anonymous because I learned very quickly at Drew that voicing an unpopular opinion results in verbal assault, and in my case, vandalism of my dorm room. Everyone has their own reasons, and that's fine.

Also, if this is not the place for discussions on SAT scores-- which stemmed directly from the discussion of the crime-- it is probably also not the place for criticizing irrelevant discussion. Perhaps you could write a letter to the editor instead to address it in a better place?

Cat, while it's certainly true that implying a direct relationship between intelligence and morality is problematic, it is interesting to note how drastically criminal behavior at Drew has risen since standards for acceptance were lowered. There is a clear correlation, though the causation is tenuous at best.

I have to agree and disagree with many points that have been raised on this board. First of all, Drew's standards have been lowered. I am a graduating senior and can see the different kinds of people that have been coming to Drew. However, you can not blame all of this on the lack of SAT's or standardized testing upon acceptance to the University. I was accepted without SAT scores and yet the classes below me were worse than my own. Drew, admirable as their intentions may have been, has been trying to "diversify" the campus over the past few years. However, while diversifying, they have seem to overlooked meritocracy. Now, I am not a racist, don't get me wrong here, I am not talking about the color of your skin or religion as part of the problem. I am talking about worrying more about "diversity" than the kind of person you are. For example, more and more typical "jocks" have been let in each year as part of this program. Many problems have stemmed from this alone. Hazing, vandalism... and the like have been attributed to not only individuals, but entire floors of sports teams. We do not have frats at Drew for a reason--they cloud the mission statement of Drew. There are also people who can barely even form a sentence in the acceptable English language (again, I am not talking about foreigners, ESOL students or people of a certain color or religion), when someone is in class and you hear, "I aint done no reading all period and I get on just right" it makes my skin CRAWL! Since I have been accepted, the minimum GPA needed to be accepted has lowered as well. There is no reason that out of the pool of the entire world we cannot find people in the 3.0 range and higher (and 3.0 is probably pushing a lower end than what was accepted in the past). Why, then, have I met numerous people with 2.5s and lower. It is disgusting. I didn't even have an interview when I applied to the University and also did not submit SAT scores. All they took was a 750 word essay on any topic that I wanted. Perhaps this isn't the best idea. Perhaps an essay on why exactly you would like to attend the University and what you expect out of your experience versus a larger or public school would be more appropriate. This is an answer that takes thought and gives insight to the persons character. Or perhaps an entrance essay done at the University to ensure meritocracy. My freshmen year, there were so many students in the remedial english program that they had to take a professor from the regular program and make a larger class size for the regular track to accommodate the remedial students. This is a problem for two reasons, why were there so many people that could not write an acceptable essay or even cite properly allowed into this "prestigious" university if they all gave writing samples in place of their SATs and why should the ones who can write at a college level be made to suffer with a larger class size because of those who should never have gotten in to begin with. Again, disgusting. Also, without the SAT scores, I think that an interview is a MUST! You can read a lot about a person by the way they carry themselves, portray themselves, how they speak, and what they have to say. To base acceptance on grades alone along with 750 words perhaps not even written by the student is outrageous. However, going back to my point. None of this really has to do with the FBI showing up at Drew to arrest this kid who decided one day that it was a good idea to ruin his life. There are plenty of people who are incredibly smart who could have gotten into Drew with absolutely no problem, even under the old standards, and made this mistake. He had to be pretty savy to begin with in order to recognize what was of importance and value in the document hall and how to find a place that would buy them. He simply made a stupid, greedy decision without thinking through the consequences of his actions. And again, he could have just needed the money and was smart enough to recognize that this was one of the safer ways to get it (not realizing that it was a federal offense of course). I agree with the fact that the librarian can not be to blame. He applied for a job and seemed to have checked out. He was supposed to be an adult trusted to do his job and as someone else mentioned, things of probably higher value to college students, like liquor in the pub, do not go missing on such a scale because the people that work there have a work ethic (and it would be easier and with fewer consequences than the FBI arresting you and prison time). Security on the documents is perhaps an issue since he was able to get so many of them out of the building without alarms going off. why is there nothing on these documents that set off a detector. They have clear coated gel which does not harm the documents that need only to be placed on a tiny corner which will set off a detector at the door, but why would we have that? Documents of...

I agree with the anonymous post from Mar 17 at 06:53. The standards for this school have dropped drastically in order to pay the debt that has grown from building/waste. My class retention rate was terrible, and the retention rates for the classes after mine have been just as bad. Why? Because they're accepting more and more idiots that can't handle the classwork, and thus begin to fail their classes. It's why Drew just recently created an "Honors program" so that the smart kids at Drew could be separated from the ones who should not be here.

And I'm not saying that this Scott kid is by any means stupid. Perhaps he did have the excellent grades once required by Drew to get in. But this is just another blot on a long list of problems that have occurred in the past school year here at the university, and it really makes you think when you have a very obvious change in the standards to begin with.

The Vandalism etc. that has gone on over the last 2 yrs. is not a product of test taking or "NOT".
the incoming students are not being screened carefully enough.
also sometimes depending on who a students' parents are and how much they contribute has to do with security and the board looking the other way.

Anonymous # 1 again. The question of why he had a key has been answered very well. I used to work in the library myself, so students being handed keys to certain areas of the libraries and rare book sections happens all of the time. There is a job interview, but it's not very thorough. Perhaps it should be more thorough from now on.

And, yes, Anon. #2, you make very good points that we don't know enough about Mr. Scott to know his scores or how he got into Drew. However, saying he probably got a higher score than me was a tad unecessary. I don't mean to generalize, but I don't have the time or desire to list every individual thing that has changed for the worse since my time there, nor do I think anyone has the time or desire to read such a list. That being said, if you are a student there (and you sound like an intelligent one, no snarkiness intended), take notice of how things are and how they change, because they will change and not always for the better. I guarantee you will be in the "disgruntled former student" box yourself one day, hopefully less so than most in the years before you.

And just to reiterate: I don't like the tests. I hated them when I took them, I hated them through most of college and grad. school. They can be (and usually are) biased when it comes to grading everyone fairly. However, the enviornment of Drew was different when students admitted had taken the test rather than when students had the test as optional. It could also be that class sizes are just too big. Or the classes from Freshmen to Seniors have really sketchy friends who do stupid things when they visit. Or the usual "kids today (insert complaint here)." Fact is, vandalism and stealing were unheard of at Drew before now, and when it started can be traced to the time when Drew stopped making the test mandatory and allowing larger class sizes. To blame it all on the test is a fallacy, and for that I apologize, but there was a massive shift during that time that many in the undergrad classes now don't know about because they weren't there. To say it begins with the test and grows into a lot more complex set of issues, well, that would probably make more sense.

The anonymous writer above, who complains about the optional SAT exams, clearly did NOT learn much during her/his time at Drew. Why? It is a logical fallacy to claim that the actions of William Scott are due to optional SAT exams, since William Scott may have even taken the SAT, as far as we know (and he perhaps even got a much higher score than the anonymous writer). We simply don't have enough information about William Scott as an individual, and we cannot generalize from one individual to the entire student body, even if some disgruntled former students seek to do just that.

The real question for me is this - why was a second year student given a key that accessed sensitive parts of the archive? Which librarian made that brilliant decision?