News-Record.com

The following is a Counterpoint
By David Mingia
You should have no fear of risking your credentials as a misanthrope as your chicanery with the written word on Feb. 18 proved ("Chabotar deserves applause," a column by Charles Davenport Jr.).

However, when you applaud Kent Chabotar's response to this year's event on campus, I do have to stand and say, "Friend speaks my mind."

Yet, I am afraid you did not stop there but instead secured your credentials as, if not a misanthrope, then surely as an op-ed writer eager to heap derision upon anyone who might be so bold as to step forward with an opinion, and then expect to retreat unscathed. But that is OK. I see it. I understand it. And even better, I respect it for what it is: You doing what you do and being who you are. We need all sides expressed if we are to have any chance at reaching consensus on how to proceed from here. In actuality your misanthropic perspective has brought into the light what might be a perceived weakness in Guilford's character and has value in the discussion.

Yes, as you conclude, "diversity, when excessive and unchecked, can render impossible the formation of true community." If any place pushes that envelope, it is Guilford. Community, diversity, equality, excellence, integrity, justice and stewardship are not easy values to apply to problem-solving in the real world.

We all fall short - that is a fact of human nature. College kids; professors; campus ministries directors; college relations directors; even newspaper writers have their own perspectives of what is "right" or "best" in any given situation and each will balance their own personal values, observations and opinions to have it all make sense to themselves. That does not make any of them "right" - it just makes them comfortable with themselves.

What you are seeing within the greater Guilford community is all of this being put out on the table (where legal and appropriate) for everyone to see. And doing it this way is not comfortable. But that, my friend, is the whole point. Everything goes out on the table: even your opinion that, "Apparently, however, the student-athlete culture is not worthy of celebration."

So, Guilford does have an excessive amount of diversity? For sure, but it is a small world and we need to get used to it. Is it going unchecked? Evidently not. It looks to me like it is being checked quite well in an environment of respect, love and human frailty.
And, oh, by the way, thanks for your misanthropic perspective and keeping this thing out in the open.

I still don't know what actually happened in the Bryan Dorm quad - I was not there.

The writer is a Guilford College alumnus, staff member and parent of a current student.