Professors should not be participants in walkout

I love Tufts _ everything about it, even the food. But my favorite thing is the endless amusement provided to me by certain individuals who do not bathe.

Remember when Tufts Students Against Discrimination (TSAD) skipped class for several days to sit in Bendetson until then-President DiBiaggio sent out a meaningless email? While prospective students and administration officials were greatly inconvenienced by the leftists' childish behavior,

students who were responsible enough to attend classes could easily laugh it off.

The newest incarnation of this inanity comes in the ever-expanding acronym of Tufts Coalition to Oppose (Showers and the) War on Iraq (TCOWI). It used to be SLAM, and before that it was TSAD, and, before that, my memory fails me. According to an article in the Daily ("TCOWI plans day_after_war walkout" 1/27/03) however, TCOWI plans to boycott classes the day after President Bush declares a war in Iraq. As of the writing of this viewpoint, TCOWI had circulated a petition declaring its opposition to the prospective war. So far, 430 members of the Tufts community have signed it.

This all sounds pretty funny at first. Imagine what Bush and his Cabinet will think. Some nuts on a college campus are so strongly opposed to his intended course of action that they're willing to not go to classes. What a sacrifice! The Commander in Chief is considering putting troops into combat, where they may die. A complacent "teach-in" at Goddard chapel in lieu of classes that are not so scrupulously attended anyway does not carry enough weight to sway his opinion.

Unfortunately, from a Tufts student's perspective, this time the demonstration is not nearly as amusing as usual. Somehow, this juvenile activism has spread beyond our students, for whom it is only slightly more appropriate, to our professors. Fully 46 of them, or 12% of our faculty, have signed this petition declaring that they object to a US-led war in Iraq. On the web page proudly displaying this petition, TCOWI provides a link to its "news." There they declare that on the business day following the start of an "unnecessary and unjustified bombing campaign or land invasion of Iraq," the students will not attend classes, and neither will the professors.

Although the professors' behavior is absurd, for the students, such action is more understandable. We are college students and are at that age when bleeding-heart idealism is expected. If, on the other hand, 12% of Tufts professors refuse to hold class, then the entire Tufts community loses more than it gains in entertainment value. We are each paying $36,465 to study here. That means, assuming I take 4 classes a semester and each one is offered three times a week, I am paying, very roughly, $217.05 for every class a professor teaches me. If any of our professors skip work for such a spurious reason, President Bacow must ensure that such delinquent behavior does not go unpunished. Certainly, pay cuts and tuition refunds would be in order, and replacing these 46 professors with professors who make teaching their first priority should be strongly considered.

These professors think they can walk out on us just because they disagree with 64% of Americans who support taking military action against Iraq? I think not. They were hired to do a job _ to teach us at

scheduled times. They were not hired to inconvenience us every time they decide they have found a new cause du jour. What professors do on their own time, when they are not scheduled to be in class, is up to them. They may engage in whatever inanities they see fit. In fact, from what I understand of academia, they are encouraged to do so. But not on my dollar.

Talia Alexander is a junior majoring in biology and environmental studies