Mr. Guch:
I am Professor Susan Wyatt of Shelbyville Community College.
I recently stumbled across your website entitled, "Cavalcade o' Chemistry,"
and was utterly appalled to find the disparaging remarks that were made about
basketweaving. You state that, "Colleges like [chemistry] more than Basketweaving
101."
I will tell you, as a matter of fact, Mr. Guch, that, having served Shelbyville
Community College as a basketweaving instructor for almost thirty years,
I know that college admissions counselors do in fact consider such an elective
course an honorable one. Many of my own students have since gone on to excel
in such reknowned institutions as the University of Indiana at Bloomington,
Elon University, University of California at Santa Barbara, and Queens College
of Charlotte, North Carolina.
I was personally offended by the notion that a class such as Basketweaving
101 would somehow prove inferior to a chemistry class. Chemistry is a class,
granted, that students are often required to take in order to graduate from
secondary school. However, the skills learned in basketweaving certainly
benefit students in all aspects of life, which colleges acknowledge and reward,
whereas the material learned in chemistry is fleeting and only absorbed properly
by those who wish to pursue careers in the sciences.
Feel free to respond to this address. Thank you for your time, and I hope
that you will have the decency to accept the value of basketweaving as an
academic course.
Sincerely,
Susan B. Wyatt, Ph.D.
This is an email a couple of my
students sent me to see if I'd get offended at people who defended the art
of basketweaving. I think they were disappointed that I didn't send
back an angry response.