Letter to the Editor

I cannot imagine that Peter Jackson approached his mean-spirited editorial about Northwestern tours with an open mind. Jackson insinuates that the campus tours, which I supervise, mislead Northwestern's prospective students. As an employee and a recent alumnus, I find the contention insulting. The advantages of the university are many, and we strive to give the most honest account of these benefits possible.

Northwestern is a real place and, as such, has its share of issues. Any one of these, including several mentioned in the article, could have sustained a full editorial. Yet no visitor would expect the tour to dwell on these negatives, so why does Jackson?

Jackson indicates that we also mislead students when we stress the positives. This contention rests primarily on Jackson's personal opinion, with his own statistics thrown in for good measure. For example, Jackson asserts that rooms in Allison, Bobb and Elder are "at most two feet longer" than the room shown in CRC. This is not only incorrect - the typical Allison double is listed as three feet longer than the room in CRC - but also misleading. Three feet of extra length makes a huge difference in the square footage of a room. In fact, a representative room in CRC is only about 80% of the size of the typical Allison double. Not to mention that dwelling on these statistics overlooks the bigger picture of the college experience. The size of your room matters far less than who you share it with.

Elsewhere, Jackson criticizes our tour guide for mentioning that PETA selected Northwestern as the top campus in the U.S. for vegans and vegetarians on the grounds that the pick "befuddles" him. High school students visiting our office are often concerned about living on their own for the first time, and seek reassurances that their preferences will be accounted for. While I appreciate Jackson's opinion, I can hardly fault our tour guides for trusting PETA on this point.

I chose these examples not because they are the only flaws in Jackson's piece, but simply because they are the best indicator of an editorial that was, on the whole, scattershot and poorly reasoned.

However, none of the aforementioned errors bothers me nearly as much as the unnecessarily harsh treatment of our tour guide, Lily Becker. Any student touring Northwestern would be fortunate to have Lily as their guide. I was not surprised to learn that she took a personal interest in the journalistic aspirations of Peter Jackson's high school persona. Indeed, every visitor can expect our tour guides to treat them with honesty and respect.

Jackson records losing a flip-flop and using the phrase "state of the art" among Lily's sins. Jackson uses the latter to criticize our tour guides for not hewing to a set script. I doubt he would have been pleased if our tour guides stuck to a rigid script instead.

The Daily serves a valuable purpose as the voice of critical reason on our campus. As a former Daily columnist, I understand the responsibility to write sharp, occasionally scathing critiques. But these critiques must also be intelligent, well-researched and well-reasoned. Jackson's editorial comes out of a tradition of the laziest, most inflammatory journalism; a breed of writing that serves to isolate rather than convince.

-Josiah Jenkins Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admission Former Daily columnist Weinberg '07