Then the Republican presidential contenders debated in Florida on Tuesday. This most recent debate was marked by some members of the audience cheering at the thought of letting someone without health insurance die.

What has happened to the idea of human dignity, or of treating our fellow people well and helping them when they stumble? Around 50 million Americans are currently uninsured, a disturbingly high number that is partially caused by the high costs of insurance. How can I feel united with people who cheer at the thought of letting someone too poor to afford health insurance die?

Sen. John Tester, D-Mont., has said that he supported health care reform because he and his family were without health insurance for a time, and he knows what it is like. Poor people are not less worthy of healthcare access than the wealthy, and the fact that many in the republican base seem to believe that they are is terrifying.

This is a country founded by immigrants, by people who came to these shores for the opportunity to better their circumstances and build better futures for their families. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

How could the United States have become so bitterly divided 10 years after we felt so united? How could people who care enough about our country’s future that they attend debates in order to help vet presidential candidates passionately support letting poor Americans die for lack of health insurance?

And why were Republican debate watchers enthusiastic when Rick Perry said in a debate last week that he has no doubts about the 234 executions that have occurred in Texas under his watch? Regardless of whether one supports the death penalty, death is never something to be taken lightly. No amount of remorse can bring back a wrongfully executed person, so we need to be sure that those executed are truly guilty. Cameron Todd Willingham, one of the men executed in Texas, is believed to have been innocent, so can we feel comfortable that a potential future president has no qualms about the man’s death?

I am still proud to be an American, for I know that I am blessed to live in a country where I can freely express doubts about my country. I am just concerned that potential future presidents think having doubts about executing the potentially innocent is a sign of weakness. These men (and woman) are pandering to debate watchers who will happily let the poor die, and as voters in the 2012 election, that should terrify us.

I once had a friend who believed in a very strict platform of one political party (for our purposes, it doesn’t even matter which). Listening to her political opinions became a practice akin to listening to passages from a Bible during a particularly tricky exorcism. You’d be hard pressed to get a word in yourself. This kind of approach typifies a small, but still significant, amount of political debate that I hear on campus. One person believes X and another thinks Y and they will forever remain divided along party lines, shouting over each other and embarrassing their neutral friends with the tenacity and incivility of their disagreement.

These are not democrats (notice the lower-case letter) but rather tools of proxy; theirs is an argument not fought from their own core beliefs but rather developed through a series of sound bytes and thin rationalities that they’ve stored in their brains on autopilot as they allowed their power for analysis to collect cobwebs. It’s easy to take political views that can be shouted rather than explained. Doctrines work like protractors; you can pin down the pencil on an issue and draw a perfect circle around it without ever having to pick up your hand and assess.

I believe that real citizenship hinges on the humility to examine and understand your own beliefs without allowing them to cloud your ability to consider others as legitimate alternatives. The nature of democracy with a lowercase d is founded upon the idea that your beliefs are equally as legitimate as my own; our votes are counted in the same measure of one. You should take the time to work out your stance on each individual issue instead of simply finding a viewpoint and building dogmatic walls of defense around it. Considering substitutes and weighing different approaches will strengthen (not dilute) your own conviction to whatever you choose. You’ll be able to understand the depths of your opinions and defend them (in inside voices) on many fronts. You’ll be able to recognize the legitimacy of the opposing argument without calling ignorance or stupidity to the other side.

I wanted this article to reach you at the beginnings of the election process before we become consumed with the he-said, she-retorted game of politics. If you find yourself in the midst of a war of dogma and verbal napalm, take a moment to remember that your friend’s ideas come from real places and that the people eating at the other end of the DUC probably don’t want to hear you either way. Turn down the volume, take a breath, and engage in a real conversation. You’ll probably learn a lot more that way.

The University hosted the 2008 vice-presidential debate, between then-candidates Sarah Palin and Joseph Biden.

Before that, the University hosted presidential debates in 1992, 2000 and 2004. It was also chosen to host a debate between President Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole in 1996, but the debate was later canceled.

Eleven other universities, including Indiana University and Wake Forest University, have also applied to host debates in 2012.

According to Rob Wild, assistant to the chancellor, the University hopes to bring the debate to campus in order to increase student political involvement.

“We push to get students registered [to vote], and certainly when there is a debate on campus we have an easier time getting people on campus engaged,” Wild said.

He also said that the debates help enhance students’ academic experiences by increasing their knowledge of the political issues affecting the country as a whole.

Still, not all members of the University community agree that the 2008 debate contributed to their educational experience.

“As a student in polisci, I don’t think it added to my learning. Although I would have had a different experience if I had gotten in [to watch the debate],” said senior Peter Bush, who didn’t have a ticket.

The presidential and vice presidential debates are organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The Commission requires that each university hosting a debate be able to contribute to the cost of the debate. According to Wild, the University was required to give $1.65 million toward the 2008 debate.

The University received funding from outside sponsors to offset the cost of the debate. The administration hopes to do the same if it is chosen to host a debate in 2012.

“We do our best to make sure we minimize that impact,” Wild said.

According to Steve Givens, associate vice chancellor for pubic affairs, the University usually looks to St. Louis-based corporations to provide sponsorship. Emerson, AT&T and Wachovia sponsored the 2008 debate.

Givens, who was the head of the debate steering committees in 2000 and 2004, noted the historical importance of hosting presidential debates.

“No one knew five years ago when we agreed to host the vice presidential debate what an important event that was going to be toward the election,” Wild said.

The University has a long-standing tradition of giving all the debate tickets that it receives to students.

In 2008, the University released debate tickets to students via a lottery system. The University chose 432 of the 7,942 students who entered the lottery to attend the debate.

Students of the campus community hope that the University has more tickets to give to students if a debate is held on campus in 2012.

“I was here for the 2008 debate. I didn’t get to go because of the lottery system. It would be nice if more students could go,” junior Emilie Weisser said.

Many members of the Washington University community think that the debates increase the University’s name recognition.

“I think the VP debates are cool because they bring recognition to the school. Most people on the coasts don’t know about Wash. U.,” sophomore Allie Brand said.

According to Wild, the Commission on Presidential Debates chooses host sites based on a number of factors, including facilities and funding. In the past, leaders of the Commission on Presidential Debates have visited the campus prior to making the decision to evaluate the facilities.

The 2008 debate was held in the Athletic Complex. The AC also housed members of the media during the debate.

Administrators say that debates have consistently created enthusiasm among members of the University community.

“It has proven to be something that brings a lot of excitement to the University,” Wild said.

Givens attributes this enthusiasm among students to the degree of political involvement it affords them.

“It brings a level of excitement for our students, that the students find themselves in the middle of an historic, maybe even game-changing event,” Givens said.

With additional reporting by Wei-Yin Ko.

Matt Mitgang

Bruce Nilles, left, Director of the Beyond Coal Campaign for the Sierra Club debates Fred Palmer, right, Senior Vice President of Government Relations for Peabody Energy, in the Great Coal Debate on Tuesday in Graham Chapel. Nilles presented the negative aspects of coal and its impact on greenhouse gases, while Palmer discussed the prevalence of coal usage and green coal.

An old-time cowboy and a suave Washington lobbyist faced off in Graham Chapel Tuesday to discuss the future of coal.

The Great Coal Debate, hosted by Student Union and organized by the Washington University Climate Justice Alliance, brought two opposing men into the same debate. Fred Palmer, the senior vice president of government relations at Peabody Energy, sported black cowboy boots to go up against Bruce Nilles, the director of the Beyond Coal Campaign for the Sierra Club.

Brian Walsh, the writer of Time’s “Growing Green” column, moderated the debate.

Peabody Energy is the largest private-sector coal company in the world. It produces coal to fuel 10 percent of the United States’ electricity generation and 2 percent of electricity generation worldwide. The CEO of Peabody Energy serves on Wash. U.’s board of trustees, alongside the CEO of Arch Coal, a coal mining and processing company.

Palmer started off the debate, giving a presentation about the necessity of coal.

He noted that it cheaply fuels American homes and developed countries worldwide.

“Coal will now be our path to greater prosperity, industrialization, a clear environment and a source of low-carbon energy for both the United States and the world in what we call green coal,” Palmer said.

Palmer has great hopes for the concept of “green coal,” which produces no emissions. This coal has not yet been produced.

Palmer stressed that coal is what brings people electricity and civilization, repeating that coal leads to “more people, living longer, living better,” and showing a chart correlating use of coal in various countries with life expectancy and education.

“This is a reality in Africa,” Palmer said, showing a picture of Africans in the middle of a plain carrying presumably food or resources on their backs, in “abject poverty and living off the land.”

Palmer expects that coal use will increase significantly over the next 30 years, and so the goal should be to find a way to get coal’s emissions down to near zero.

Palmer also explained that people look at carbon dioxide wrongly and that they should look at it as a product and not a pollutant.

“We’re good at focusing on the negatives [of coal], not the positives,” Palmer said.

He also pointed out that coal is used globally and is not solely a resource in the United States. China’s and India’s coal use is rapidly growing, and Palmer promoted the idea of “green coal” again to fit the situation.

Nilles’ presentation differed in that it focused on the negatives of coal and the lack of progress made on so-called “clean” or “green coal.” He started off stating that 81 percent of all greenhouse emissions come from coal, even though it accounts for less than 50 percent of electricity.

“This promise of capturing carbon is simply a promise that hasn’t been realized,” Nilles said.

Not only have coal companies not lived up to their promises, but also, their facilities are not kept up to date. Nilles said that about 70 percent of coal-processing plants were built before or around 1980 and have not been changed to account for new pollution controls.

He also drew the audience’s attention to the problems of soot and smog around coal plants, touting $750 million in health care costs in St. Louis alone directly related to the three coal processing plants in the city.

Their pollution is rampant, and, in addition to hurting humans, hurts the environment as a whole.

“There is no industry that does a better job of creating regulatory loopholes,” Nilles said.

Nilles also thought that the economic benefits touted by coal companies is a farce and that more jobs could be created in new “green energy” (not coal) sectors.

After each speaker made his 20-minute presentation and the moderator asked one question, the floor was opened to questions.

When asked if he believed in global warming, Palmer responded that Peabody had agreed to the President’s proposal of an 80-percent reduction of emissions by 2050.

“We recognize the concerns people have regarding climate change,” Palmer said. “We do think there is too much emphasis on computer model projections in the future and not enough emphasis on people now and our lifestyles and our wealth and our health now and the health of our kids now.”

This article has been updated to reflect the following correction
An earlier version of this article mistakenly attributed a quote about global warming to Bruce Nilles; in fact, the quote (which begins “We recognize…”) was said by Fred Palmer. Student Life regrets the error.

Chancellor Mark Wrighton speaks at the State of the University in April. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

Student Life conducted an interview with Chancellor Mark Wrighton after the most recent quarterly meeting of the board of directors on Friday. The discussion involved a review of major events that occurred during the semester. Wrighton commented on the growth of the endowment this quarter, upcoming budget cuts, the debate surrounding clean coal, recent ethical controversies, the University’s position on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the racial discrimination incident at Original Mothers bar in Chicago, and his favorite Michael Jackson song.

Mark Wrighton: Let me just quickly summarize the meeting, and then you can ask me some questions. I’ve made a big mistake in the meeting; I didn’t look at my Blackberry, like I often do in meetings, to find out that at half-time we were winning one to nothing, but on the way here, I just found out that we were tied five minutes ago. So, we’re hoping that we break that tie before the end of regulation play so that we are in the national championship. But I did note to the Board that we were playing at the time that I was giving my remarks, when we were just starting.

But I summarized a number of activities on campus, and initiatives and such, but the Board, at the December meeting, which is the second meeting of the academic year, elected a trustee that is Ethan A.H. Shepley Trustee, and that person is Andrea Grant, a double alumnae of the university from Arts and Sciences and from Law, and her Board service begins now. The first meeting would be in March—the first regular meeting.
And there are a number of things here, but that was one of the key action items. Another key action item related to candidates was appointment or promotion to tenured faculty positions. We had some candidates for those posts, and we also introduced a resolution on the setting of tuition, which is a process that concludes next month with meeting of the executive committee in terms of decision, and then a letter goes to the students and their families later in January.

The big agenda item for the Board in terms of substance for discussion really are plans to deal with the fiscal challenges for next year. At a committee meeting yesterday—the Board committee that is responsible for this—voted to reduce endowment spending by 4%, so university-wide, that is about $10 million reduced in revenue, and that is a complication that we knew about, even though the endowment has recovered quite significantly since July 1. We still feel it would be prudent to reduce spending by 4% next year; that is on top of 4% for the year we’re in. So we spent a fair amount of time—about a little over half an hour, I believe—talking with the Board about the financial planning next year.

Student Life: Since the endowment is down, is it still shrinking?

MW: Well, since July 1st through the end of November, we estimate that the endowment has increased by 13+ percent. We will spend, roughly speaking, 5%. So if we spent the 5% and ended up with the 13% gain, the endowment growth would be 8%. After the first quarter it was up 10%, so if you multiply that by four, we’d be up by 40% then—I’d be happy, but then it is a long year. And with all the certainty in the economy it would be premature to even count on a 13% total return on the investments. We obviously hope for that.

SL: Are there layoffs ahead?

MW: We’re going to be announcing, more broadly, the results of all our financial planning in the month of January, most likely. We have made all the firm decisions about where reductions will occur, but right now, we’re looking at, in just say the central administration, something like $7 million of reductions, and that’s a pretty significant number. But we’ve been working with people; we have some open positions that will not be filled. We’ll obviously try to minimize the consequences. We think that the administration does something, and if you cut, you’ll do less. And what we are trying to do is to, on the one hand, make the reductions we need to be fiscally responsible and also to prepare ourselves for years ahead that we think are not going to be robust in terms of large rates of growth of revenue. It is a different world. If it happens, as I said to the Board, we’ve got these great plans, and if new resources come along to support them, we’ll do new things, and we are doing new things as resources become available. Our scholarship initiative, for example, is an effort that can build resources.

SL: On another note, the University announced over the summer that it is closing the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human values at the end of the year. Meanwhile, University faculty members Jeff Smith and Timothy Kuklo drew national attention this semester for unethical actions; Smith for lying about his role in producing illegal campaign literature, Kuklo for falsifying data in a medical study. How do these events reflect on the state of ethics at Washington University?

MW: We have to reflect that we’re an institution populated by people, with all that that implies. All people exhibit shortfalls. It is regrettable people in positions of prominence and in positions of responsibility exhibit such short falls. You imply a relationship between the closing of the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values and fact that we had these shortfalls. I believe that it is the case that the transgressions of these individuals would not have been materially affected by whether or not we had a center in the first place, or whether we closed it, or added 20 million dollars to its budget. I think we have, in fact, a very strong community. We have a very strong culture of what I call—what we call—compliance, that is, an environment where people are informed about the policies of the university, and we have systems in place to review whether we are in compliance. I think, overall, we’re very strong in those regards.

Unfortunately, the constraints we face physically are going to affect all parts of the university. I said we’re reducing expenditure in the central administration, what we called the Central Fiscal Unit. The schools of the Danforth campus will also be experiencing, if not outright reductions, they will be slowing their development of new initiatives, slowing or lowering the number of faculty hired, so everybody will be operating with more financial constraints.

Unlike Student Life, my administration’s paper goes out of print after the December 10th issue. I’m told that will save 87 thousand dollars. I’m also told that there are individuals that are upset that they won’t have a printed Record, but we believe that it is the right decision in the long-term. The transition will be hard. I know people who don’t have computers—it might be hard for you to believe—but people who are fairly sophisticated, and when they do, they don’t read newspaper on them. We’re going to be doing a number of things that, you know, are not necessarily the most desirable things for us to be doing. But I don’t think the closing of the Center for Ethics and Human Values is the major contributor to a culture that I believe is quite robust with high integrity and a commitment to this community’s values and policies.

SL: What effect do these controversies around ethics have on students? On the University as a whole?

MW: I think the institution has broad shoulders—it’s a saying. Obviously, it’s not a positive on our reputation, but these are transgressions of individuals. I think for our part it’s disappointing, sad in a way—disappointing certainly, and for people who know the positive qualities of people who have made mistakes, it’s difficult. So nobody enjoys seeing a person who is found to have made these mistakes and I think for students, many of whom perhaps would have today aspirations not unlike Jeff Smith—people may have looked to him as a role model. We see oftentimes people who are our role models not quite living up to our expectations or the expectations that have somehow surrounded them and those shortcomings have unfortunately been, you know, have involved high profile individuals at the highest levels of the United States government, in the clergy, here in the academia, and certainly in the business world. So it’s something that I think we need to take seriously and we need to encourage a culture of integrity, and I think that we do. And a lot of our academic programs have these components as a part of the curriculum.

SL: One of the really significant events for students this semester was the incident of alleged racial discrimination at Original Mother’s Bar in Chicago. In response to this, you sent a letter to Chicago’s Mayor Daley, and you wrote that the experience of our students reveals “we have much work to do to achieve true racial equality in this country.” Have you heard back from Mayor Daley?

MW: No, I have not. I would have expected at least a courtesy response, something to the effect of: “I have received your letter; we will review what you have written”. You know, something that probably would have come pretty quickly and something in that vein, with no promises, but basically, an acknowledgement of the letter. I do have to say, I am extremely proud of our students, who conducted themselves in a way that makes me very proud to be a part of Washington University. And for the University, I think it frankly led to some very positive attention, and people have come to me about it. It’s been great to see our students conduct themselves so effectively at a time when it could have been emotional. I wasn’t there myself, but I know we had a large number of students there and I thought they responded extraordinarily well. And in the aftermath I think they conducted themselves well, and as I understand it, the outcome in connection with those responsible for that bar have made some commitments that I think will contribute to making their business better.

SL: And what is the University doing to achieve racial equality both here and more broadly in the community and the country?

MW: I think one of the most important things that an academic institution can do is to work hard to have a very inclusive environment as a community, which welcomes people and provides great opportunities. One of your headlines today is socioeconomic diversity. I haven’t read the article, but I saw it, as featured on my Blackberry. I think in an academic institution, and especially even though we are constrained, we should know that we are a wealthy institution. We have $5 billion in the bank, and that’s a lot of money. So we can afford to be proactive in recruiting people from all backgrounds. It’s not just counting noses. It’s really bringing to all members of the community the benefits of diversity. Washington University Students are destined to be leaders. That’s your potential. You’ll be leaders of organizations which are diverse, and it’s important to build a good understanding of all the people you’re going to be working with. I think here I’ve interacted with students who have told me, for example, a Midwestern young woman said to me ‘I came to Washington University and I’d never met anyone who’s Jewish.’ Well, they’d probably never been to New York, which has a very large Jewish population. But also the way we assign housing, you know people living together. We had a presentation at the Board meeting today on the McDonnell International Scholars academy. One of the committees, the committee on educational policy, and Professor Jim Werch, who is the director of the academy, he said ‘We’re building a network of people who get to know each other while they are here, and to understand the different cultures that they themselves represent.’ And you may know that there is tension at times between Japan and Korea. In the McDonnell academy we have partners in Japan, we have partners in Korea, and we have scholars from both countries, and we have a Japanese scholar who has a roommate from Korea. And I think that helps build better relationships and inasmuch as we say, and we hope, they emerge as global leaders, they can help over time address differences that have in the past, at least, created big conflict. And we know in America that racism exists, as evidenced by what went on in Chicago, and I think by having students here interacting with each other from many different backgrounds, that will be a positive in their education. So I think there are a lot of ways that we can help out. And I’ve pointed out to the Board that we’re not, for example, in this time of constraint diminishing our commitment, resolve, resources in our effort to strengthen diversity. That remains a very high priority.

SL:  Many students have criticized the administration’s position on clean coal, especially as relates to its appointment of two new Board members from prominent coal energy corporations and its hosting of an energy conference in support of clean coal. How do you respond to students critical of the University’s stance on clean coal?

MW: Well, first of all, the administration doesn’t appoint the Board of trustees. As was the case today, the Board elects its own members. So as Chancellor, I’m not a voting member of the Board. It is true that I can suggest people to be considered, and the process is one that involves a committee of the Board, the Nominating and Governance committee of the Board, receiving suggestions from people in the administration or other Board members, and there’s a fairly long list of people. The Board looks to recruit new members who will bring the three things we expect of Board group members: Work, wisdom, and wealth. At least two of the three. It’s kind of a funny saying, it’s from Vartan Gregorian, who was at the time he said it I think the president of Brown University. Board members of Washington University come from all parts of America. We look for people who are from major population centers. We look for Board members who are in positions of responsibility where they would have the experience that doesn’t guarantee wisdom, but experience that perhaps suggests that they would have that. Greg Boyce, who is the executive office of Peabody Energy, is by background an engineer and the chief executive officer of the world’s largest privately held coal company. Steve Leer—Greg Boyce is not an alumnus of the University—Steve Leer is a business alumnus of the university, and the CEO of another very large coal company, companies which happen to be headquartered in St. Louis, and companies that are going to be arguably extremely important to the future of the United States. They are major employers, they have major technical challenges, and therefore, they would appear to be in positions to give us guidance on how to address those technical challenges. They are, their companies, are our partners.

So let’s talk about the conference. I don’t rule on who’s a member of the Board. I can’t even overrule. They’re all my bosses. But it isn’t like a corporate board. A not-for-profit board has the interests of the institution. They are the owners of the institution while they’re board members, and they have the responsibility- they have two very important responsibilities. One is to oversee the assets of the university. We talked a little bit about the endowment. That’s a big responsibility of the Board. That’s their responsibility. I don’t tell them how to invest the endowment, the way it works is they say, as they did yesterday, ‘Here’s how much money we’re going to authorize to be given to the administration.’ And what I’m supposed to do is to use the money as wisely as possible. Oversight of the physical assets and the financial assets, that’s a Board responsibility.

The other responsibility is the review the performance of the Chancellor and to select the Chancellor if there’s a need to make a transition. So every year they review my performance, and could say, you know, ‘July 1, you’re done.’ I stand for election every year. And then, in large measure, they abdicate the administration to me, and I recommend to them University officers, and the deans. The University officers are the people who have the title Vice Chancellor, Treasurer, and Secretary to the Board. All of us, Chancellor and all those officers, stand for reelection every year.

But in terms of the actual operations of the University, for first order they say ‘OK, you’re the CEO, you’ve got your officers and your deans, you run the show and we’ll keep an eye on you.’ So some would imply, for example, that two Board members could say, ‘You know, you guys, you have to advocate for coal.’ Virtually never, I would say never, I’ve been here 15 years, no board member has ever said to me, ‘You know, you ought to have this policy.’ We propose policy to them, and they approve or not. And we have no policy on energy. I will state that categorically.

Let me say that again: we have no policy as an institution on whether coal is good or solar is good. The symposium that we convened stems from my involvement as vice-chairman of a national research council committee on America’s energy future. The committee, not Mark Wrighton but the committee, came up with a collection of findings, and if you haven’t read the report you can check this out, but at this meeting I gave a quick overview of the findings. And I emphasized two things, which, now this is Mark Wrighton’s opinion, not the University’s policy. The committee found that there’s a great opportunity in improving energy efficiency. We can reduce the consumption of energy, and especially electrical energy, by deploying known technology. You don’t have to do research, just implement this technology. And yet it costs money. But we say, and this is a University operational activity, wherever we can, we’re making capital investments to reduce the amount of energy we consume. If you’re familiar, we’ve renovated Busch hall here on the quadrangle. We redid the building so that, at least by our reckoning, we should get LEED certification at the silver level. And we deployed capital to reduce energy and we think it’s good because we’re going to save money. That is, our operating expenses on an ongoing basis will be lower. Let’s say for the sake of argument we spent a million dollars to improve the energy efficiency. We believe that in four years, we’ll be saving $250,000 a year in operations. Now that’s 10 average scholarship awards. And it isn’t over in 4 years, that’s going on into the future and we believe – no proof – energy prices will go up. I happen to believe that prices will go up over the long term. So that’s one thing I said.

The second thing I said at the symposium—I said a lot of things. But I emphasized the other big finding and again, my own opinion. The big finding is that coal is a very large resource the United States and many parts of the world. And our committee observed that carbon dioxide is a problem that we have to address. And if coal is to be a part of the future—today it’s 50% of US electricity, 85% of Missouri’s electricity—but if this is to continue to be a part of the future, and you’re worried about CO2, as many people are, than you have to be able to demonstrate at utility plant scale that there’s a technology that you can afford to capture and store carbon dioxide.

So I advocated for that demonstration project. I didn’t tell you I think coal is what we should be using. I believe in fact it was a mistake, if you listen to other things I say, it was a mistake for Missouri to not do something proactive that would have encouraged Ameren to build another nuclear power plant here. By basically making it difficult for Ameren to build the nuclear power plant, we have no option other than the combustion of coal, so we have to learn to work with it in a way that will not add to the detrimental consequences from CO2, and that’s to develop technology to deal with it. I’m a scientist. I’ve actually done a fair amount of work in energy conversion—fuel cells, solar energy conversion, catalysis—so I’m familiar with the language at least, I haven’t done anything important in at least 15 years in the actual science. But my own favorite, frankly, is solar and I said this at the meeting. There’s a huge super abundance of solar energy, we just have to capture it and that’s a fundamental research activity that I think we should be involved in. And we are. The largest grant ever to the Danforth campus came from the Dept. of Energy in April for work on photosynthesis. It’s a little more—they’ve decorated it more in their title, but it’s photosynthesis work that would give fundamental understanding that could help you use plants as models or actually use plants to generate fuel and that’s renewable. So I’m for it. But coal is with us today and our committee observes that renewables are likely in the next 10 years, which is a part of our charge, what’s going to happen in a decade, that renewables, much as we would like them perhaps to be a bigger part, they’re not going to be a big part of the energy picture for the United States in fractional terms. But wouldn’t you like to have the company that generates 1% of US electricity? You’d be affluent and influential. You could be a member of the board of trustees. But we know that it’s very hard to get to a new energy technology that delivers a significant fraction of US electricity. Moreover, we know as a matter of fact, it’s not what we wish or want necessarily but we know as a matter of fact that the developing world, especially China and India, are today deploying old technology, at best current technology, that uses much more coal tomorrow than they’re using today. And it’s almost literally tomorrow. Missouri has a population of roughly 5 million people. China has a population of over a billion. And there are many parts of China that don’t have access to the amount of energy that we do, and yet they’re growing rapidly. China became the largest producer of automobiles in the world last year, over a million automobiles per month. No exports. All domestic. So China, with 80% of their electrical energy from coal, with a prediction that it will still be 80% 10 years from now. Don’t we have a moral responsibility, not only to the United States but to the rest of the world, to work to develop technologies that will work to mitigate the consequences of the combustion from all that coal? That’s why we’re working on clean coal. I mean our, it isn’t something that I’m sitting in my office and I’m saying ‘Hm, we’ve got these big companies, let’s advocate for coal.’ We’re using coal. The rest of the world is going to use coal. There’s a lot of it and our faculty—not Mark Wrighton, I didn’t do coal research, I did solar energy—but our faculty said ‘We have some ideas that we’d like to pursue, do you think Arch Coal and Peabody Energy and Ameren would be willing to fund our research?’ Well those companies, obviously, they have a vested interest in clean coal and they’re investing. And the biggest investments are not in fact with us. Peabody Energy, for example, is investing in China more money than they’re investing with us…

We’re going to be announcing some ambitions in terms of the university operations that relate to the consumption of energy, but overall, we don’t have a position on what’s the best technology. And going back to our committee, I was the messenger at this meeting, not the policymaker, not speaking about whatever we’re going to do, but the committee—properly, in my view; since I’m vice chair I had my say in that—said ‘You know, we’re going to have a whole bunch of energy technologies, and all that are sensible will be used. Wind, geothermals, solar, photovoltaic, hot water from sunlight—everything is going to be used that makes sense.’ And it’s two words: makes sense. We might be able to take carbon dioxide from coal fired power plants and store it, but if it costs more than some number, it’s a losing proposition and it would make coal more expensive than, say, photovoltaics with storage, you know, with electrical storage, like batteries. You have to do what’s technologically feasible and economically viable.

And one other thing about the symposium, because I think you’d written that we didn’t have anything but coal on the agenda. We had a prominent presentation by—two presentations by outstanding women. Maxine Sabbots gave the keynote talk on energy efficiency, and we had Martha Schlicker of Monsanto, who is Vice President for Biofuels, a renewal energy, and we had an Ameren utility representative. Utilities are basically the people who convert one form of energy into electricity. They don’t have a dog in the hunt either, so to speak. They’d be happy for photovoltaics, and they’re under some mandate to do more in that arena. And we had a policy leader from the Brookings Institution. We had two people from coal, but two of the largest coal companies in the world are here, and we’re their partner.

SL: Students have decried a lack of student input in administrative decisions over the last year. In particular, students have criticized the university’s implementation of a smoking ban without student input and its investment of the endowment in a non-transparent manner. What is students’ role in administrative decision-making?

MW: Well, the board has the responsibility for the endowment. So it’s not a lack of transparency, I don’t actually know what the students would like to know more about. And yet, it’s a board responsibility. We have no secrets. We’re not secretly investing in Cuban companies that make cigars and sell them, while we’re introducing a smoking ban. There’s no—the board has formed an internal company called the Washington University Investment Management Company. The chairman of the board is the former chairman and chief executive officer of the country’s largest pension fund, TIAA-CREF, that’s John Biggs, and we hired to be the Chief Investment Officer a woman by the name of Kim Walker, and there’s a small board on this investment management company, and they oversee the investment of the endowment. They take their cues in part from what’s called the Asset Management Committee, which is another Board of Trustees committee, that sets the spending rule.

Do you have a savings account somewhere? If I said to you, ‘You can spend 10% per year,’ do you think you could keep your savings at that level by making wise investments? I bet you can’t. That’s what the experts say. I’m not an expert, but that’s what the experts say. You can’t spend 10% of your endowment and be safe, and have some high probability that you’ll still have your savings account. There are risky investments that promise you high returns. If you want high returns, you have high risk. And we try to—here’s our goal: Whatever spending from the endowment, we have the goal that the buying power grows a little bit with time. So that means whatever we take out every year, we’d like to be able to increase it at least by inflation plus a little bit. And that’s our goal. So what’s your guess about inflation? It’s maybe 3%. We’d also like to be spending about 5%. So that means 3% plus 5%, that’s 8% total return. And our historic return is 9%. But if you took out 10%, just to spend it, you’d soon run your endowment down or you’d be in such risky investments that in a time like we’ve experienced in the last 15 months, the endowment would be gone. So we have professionals who look at all that—there are no secrets. IN fact, it’s sort of like watching paint dry, you know, it’s not that interesting. We don’t actually—there’s no one—I have to be careful, because I’m not intimately involve din it, but I don’t think we have people who are getting the annual reports of publicly traded companies and saying, ‘I think we ought to invest in Monsanto,’ or Peabody energy, or any other company. The work is done with investment managers, and it’s key to listen to the strategy of these investment managers and then to hire them and then say, ‘We’ll give you $200 million dollars of our endowment, and we’re going to be watching you. How did you perform?’ And it’s financial. I don’t know how to be more transparent, but ask me any question.

What was the other thing—oh the smoking. Yeah. Completely an administration decision, and the right one. Completely black-and-white. Why should we form a committee when we know what the answer is? Washington University was a forefront institution in terms of relating smoking and lung cancer. That was years ago, and over time there’s been an extraordinarily compelling science case for eliminating the use of tobacco products, and I think it’s the right thing. Even secondhand smoke has been proven to be a challenge to public health. SO here we are, an institution at the forefront of medical science, and I think we shouldn’t permit smoking on our property. So I’ll take the spears on that one.

SL: Moving on, the University recently began a search for a new dean for the engineering school. First of all, when will we have a new dean?

MW: July 1st.

SL: And how will this dean be different from the last?

MW: Don’t know yet. We’ll see who it is. Ask me that question in the process. Provost Macias is responsible for conducting that process. It’s just been launched and we’re focusing our search on internal search, by that I mean a person from the academic community of Washington University. In a time like this, I think it would be a little harder to effect a transition from outside, and I think we really need a person that understands us.

SL: Are there specific qualities that you have in mind that would be different form what we had before?

MW: I think our expectation is what we look for for all our academic leaders, people who have themselves a demonstrated record of academic achievement. In this position, of course, we would want evidence of administrative experience and effectiveness overall, a person who can not be overly frustrated by a constrained economic environment, which we know we’re going to have. I’ve been, as I noted before, I’ve been here about 15 years, and we never had a year where we had no compensation increases materially, and where we had a downturn in the endowment. Al the years I’ve been here the endowment always went up until the year we’re in. And you know, that can be very, it is very disappointing, but you don’t want to let it cripple you. Our challenge continues to be the need to be the institution that seems to be and actually is on the move. And I think we can do that. I’m sure you noticed if you have friends at other institutions—they have big problems, bigger than ours.

SL: The student-led gay rights movement The Right Side of History has made LGBT civil rights a major political issue on campus this year. The leader of the movement, David Dresner, has asked University deans to send letters to students explaining why the University allows military recruiters on campus despite the military’s policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which conflicts with the University’s non-discrimination policy. This came one year after the university began an annual James Holobaugh LGBT awards ceremony, which honors the legacy of an ROTC military cadet who was discharged from the military after he came out as gay. What is the university’s position on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?

MW: I’ve been involved in this issue since I was provost at MIT, which actually has ROTC programs with the Navy, the Air Force and, I think, the Army. I may be wrong on that, but I’ve had a fair amount of experience. My father was in the US navy, career navy man, so I know something about how the military works. There is no evidence that sexual orientation has anything to do with performance, meaning that gays or lesbians are going to perform just as any other person. And the military understands that. I think the military is prepared to change their policy. Unfortunately, I think political leaders are frankly not as understanding of the reality here. And I think I would strongly like to see the United States change its policy. And there are a couple of ways to do that. The president of the United States could order it, in principle. And I think President Clinton was trying to find a path that didn’t create so much political problems that he couldn’t move forward. The Congress could vote and change that policy for the Defense Department, and the courts could, in principle, do something, according to my understanding. So I’m hopeful that the policy will be changed. I believe it should be. And there is a conflict between Washington University’s view and policy and my view, and that of the U.S. government. It’s a problem that we’ve been working on for quite some time. I think there’s growing understanding, and you hear that from military leaders or former military leaders, people who are, I believe, in a very good position to know, and I believe that over time the government will change its policy.

SL: Can we ask you a fun one on the way out?

MW: A fun one?

SL: What is your favorite Michael Jackson song?

MW: Name a few to remind me of them.

SL: Thriller, Billie Jean, Beat It, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.

MW: I’d have to hear them. I didn’t listen that much to Michael Jackson. My wife accuses me of just having been in the laboratory too long.

Trying to end a discussion with “It’s just my opinion,” apart from being about as poor a debate technique as is possible, is probably the biggest cop-out that can be committed. This is a major pet peeve of mine. If you can’t support your opinion with anything other than the fact that it is your opinion, then it is most likely an uninformed or even outright wrong opinion. At the very least, it is not thought out at all and is therefore not worth having. But I digress.

If it truly is just a matter of taste, and if taste were immeasurable, then there would be no possible argument either way. Since no one ever says “It’s just my opinion” outside an argument, this is not the case. Therefore, there must be some way to approximate and quantify a measure of taste.

First, a definition of “better” must be established. It is not unreasonable to define “better” on a societal level, and this will make the distinction easier. The only way to objectively determine what is “best” is to allow society to make the judgment. Also, we will assume that people use money as a means to assign a value to something, and the more money they spend on a certain good or service, the “better” that good or service is. And since, as we all well know, time is money, time shall also be an indicator of quality.

Therefore, when comparing the quality of two things whose qualitative differences seem to stem simply from differences in tastes across people, the amount of money that society spends on each thing can be a measure of absolute quality. Granted, it is not entirely accurate. This is biased toward those with excess money to spend, and it really reflects society’s beliefs about the quality of the thing, rather than the thing’s inherent quality (although it can be argued—and I would argue—that there is no difference between the two).

In order to hedge our measure, we will include reviews (both consumer and professional) of whatever we are comparing. It takes time to go out and rate something, and even more to write a review. The more time that is spent, the more people care about what they are talking about and the more their opinions should be taken into account. Again, there are some biases, but I sincerely believe this is the best system we can have.

It passes the common sense test: “Inglourious Basterds” is better than “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” even without DVD sales.

In light of your open letter to Professor Peter Benson (Oct. 2), we feel that it is necessary to state the position of Controversy n’ Coffee, as a student group dedicated to fostering dialogue in the Wash. U. community.

The purpose of Controversy n’ Coffee is to bring students, faculty and community leaders together to discuss pressing social and political issues. We select panelists with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints in order to expose students to multiple perspectives and opinions on these critical issues. Our panelists graciously make time to participate in our events and interact with students at a level that is often not possible in the classroom, and each contributes valid opinions and a vast amount of knowledge from his or her area of expertise.

Students are, of course, invited and encouraged to express their own opinions; the controversial component of our events effectively facilitates meaningful discussion. The issue at hand is not the voicing of a contradictory opinion, but rather the manner in which it was done. We strive to create a respectful environment conducive to intellectual conversation rather than offensive retaliation against conflicting viewpoints. The latter seems to show a lack of concern for the respectful protocol we expect when dissenting opinions are voiced.

Our event last Thursday, which focused on the smoking ban at Wash. U., raised various important points regarding the ethics of an institution dictating an individual’s right to smoke on campus. This, being one of the event’s main points of controversy, generated a spirited discussion that persisted beyond the event itself and continued for another hour with students and panelists expressing their views in a more informal setting. We are always pleased to see our audience leave our events stimulated to debate these issues and develop their own opinions.

One of the main topics discussed after the event was precisely the problem with the conception of Washington University as a parent to its students. Indeed, Washington University provides, first and foremost, the service of education; and as adults, students should in no way expect the University to “raise us, care for us, love us, comfort us, protect us and support us in endeavors.” It would be a true challenge to find an administrator or faculty member who believes in the University’s duty to serve the role of a parent. In the discussion that followed the event, it was expressed that—just like any law-enforcing institution—a university can and should be able to enforce policies, particularly when they are consistent with the broader policy changes that are occurring not only on a national but also international level. The principal view that was expressed in opposition to this claim did not focus on the simple question of whether the University is supposed to act like a parent. Rather, it was focused on the rights of mature adults to make individual decisions and to have input on important policies that will affect campus life.

We hope that our response has been thorough and that it is understood that the point of our events is to stimulate thoughtful conversation. As anyone who has attended our events and stayed for the discussions that follow will attest, the way that conversation turns into anything fruitful or productive is through dialogue rather than aggressive retaliation.

In the same week that I read the recent Student Life article about the Right Side of History, a new movement beginning at Wash. U. designed to engage straight youth in the struggle for gay rights, I also read a post on The New Republic’s Web site called “The Worst Argument You’ve Ever Read For Banning Openly Gay People From the Military.” The post was a critique of a recent Weekly Standard article written by James Bowman that argued, with no apparent sign of jest, that gay men and women should be excluded from military service because homosexuality contradicts traditional notions of masculinity.

Lest you think I am oversimplifying the argument, here is a direct quote from the article explaining its thesis: “This is not, of course, to say that homosexuals are weak or cowardly—only that the reputation of manliness, which we know to be an important component of military honor, is in practice incompatible with the imputation either of homosexuality or of weakness and cowardice.”

It was the kind of argument I find more appropriate for The Onion than for a leading conservative magazine, and its severe weakness only proves that there are no good arguments left in support of such bigotry and exclusion.

Bowman’s only answer for the obvious rebuttal that his conception of “manliness” (which is hardly an essential part of military service anyway, especially given the brave service of many women in today’s armed forces) is not inherent but rather socially contrived and can thus be challenged is to claim that such a challenge is not worth the minimal national security risk.

The truth, however, is that there is little reason to believe that the presence of openly gay soldiers would negatively affect military performance. In fact, the most compelling recent argument against excluding gays from the military was published last week in an official military journal. As its author, Air Force Col. Om Prakash wrote, “after a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly.” As more and more military officials call for repeal, civilians have no legitimate reason to continue supporting our current flawed policy.

The real threat to national security is that our military continues to discharge qualified servicemen and women, whose skills and experience are badly needed in Iraq and Afghanistan, for no other reason than that they are openly gay. We should be thanking these individuals for their brave service and willingness to sacrifice for their country. Instead, we are firing them. Particularly troubling, we have discharged multiple Arab linguists despite the fact that they are critical to our mission in Iraq and are in short supply.

The reality is that “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is not just a discriminatory policy that is unfair to LGBT individuals; it is a nonsensical policy that has negative consequences for all of us. It is also one of the most compelling of many reasons why the struggle for LGBT civil rights is one that should concern us all.

The Right Side of History has based its strategy on this premise that discrimination of one minority group is harmful to all and should thus be a universal issue. The group has yet to prove itself, and I am anxious to see the results that their efforts will hopefully produce. Meanwhile, however, I am glad to see students at Wash. U. standing up for what is clearly the right side of this debate.

In a society where we’ve made such progress that we’re able to reject rape, why are we still debating torture? If somebody took a stance for rape and made a genuine appeal to society to start allowing the rape of any persons, that somebody’s stance would be immediately rejected and that somebody would be booed off and shunned from society, and rightfully so. However, when somebody makes an appeal for torturing some individuals, we actually contend that stance and make arguments against that person, in what seems to be a contradiction. While rape and torture aren’t immediately up for conflation, they’re both heinous acts that are cruel, inhuman and worthy of punishment to the highest degree possible. Nevertheless, we continue to debate torture as if a stance could be taken that involves torturing others. The claim that torture is necessary never applied to the My Lai Massacre, the Rape of Nanking or any other historical event that achieved some political or military goal at the expense of drastically harming others in a brutal, painful, and extended fashion. Even setting that aside, would we allow detainees to be raped instead of tortured? The very notion sounds horribly strange, and yet the same does not apply for torture. It seems we don’t hold the same level of disgust for such a disgusting act, and it’s not readily clear why. For now, anyway, I can only hope that we will eventually reach the point in society where we look back and think of the contradiction in what we allow and disallow in discourse.

After all, college students vote in notoriously low numbers. We also blindly worship young celebrity candidates rather than carefully examining the issues, and we spend all of our time watching “Grey’s Anatomy” in our unwashed pajamas and eating cereal.

This stereotype, however, is false. Not only do we sometimes watch “Lost” instead of “Grey’s,” but we also have been watching the election coverage. We have even been talking about the issues and registering to vote.

Furthermore, the Commission on Presidential Debates chose Wash. U. despite our alleged apathy. I am fairly certain it was not for our picturesque collegiate Gothic architecture, but rather as a reminder that this election is about the future. More than anything, this debate is about we college students and about the kind of world we will soon inherit.

Right now, that world is looking pretty bleak. The economy is rapidly collapsing; the environment is deteriorating; the inequality gap is widening and America’s standing in the world is substantially weaker than it was eight years ago.

For the first time in American history, a generation of young adults may face a lower standard of living than the generation before them.

Tonight our vice presidential candidates need to explain how they and their running mates will reverse these trends.

We need a candidate who offers a plan for successfully withdrawing from Iraq. We cannot afford to spend the next 100 years maintaining Iraqi stability, especially at a time when America so desperately needs to be investing more money at home.

We need increased regulation and oversight for the companies receiving government handouts as part of our attempt to save our collapsing financial system. For the past eight years, our government regulators have operated with a deep contempt for regulation. The result has been disastrous.

We need an energy policy that forces us to kick our addiction to oil completely. Gimmicks like gas tax holidays and offshore drilling offer a little short-term relief, but do nothing to encourage the investment in alternative energy that we need to carry us into the future.

We need to restore our focus on the war in Afghanistan, the real home of Al-Qaeda, and prevent the conflict from spillover into Pakistan where instability could place nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. We need a candidate who will address the growing threat of a nuclear Iran.

Finally, we need a candidate who will reform our health care system, improve the quality of our public education and repair our infrastructure. Making these critical investments is the only way to preserve America’s economic competitiveness for the 21st century and protect my generation’s economic prospects.

These are issues that deserve real, substantive debate. Cheap sound bites and trivial distractions are not enough to capture the magnitude of the problems we now face.

Temporary solutions like offshore drilling are not enough. Running on wedge issues like abortion or gun control is not enough. Empty attack ads are not enough.

My generation deserves more than an overstretched military, a rising debt to China and a devastated planet. Instead, help us inherit a future free from nuclear proliferation and dependence on foreign oil. Help us find better job opportunities when we graduate and help us now as we struggle to pay rising college tuition costs.

This election is too important to be skewed by sensationalistic journalists or candidates who attempt to compensate for weak platforms with shameless personal attacks.

Maybe that’s why Wash. U. students have been registering to vote in record numbers this fall: It seems that we have woken up from our television-induced comas long enough to notice that our future is at risk.

So please don’t reduce this election to a mere personality contest. Give us a real debate, one that moves this country forward into the future and promises us the opportunities for progress afforded to each American generation before us. We deserve no less.