Fleming misrepresents graduate student plight

Rhetoric is a difficult art. The Roman statesman Cicero writes at length about the three styles: grand, middle, and plain, which are pretty much like they sound. The ideal orator can use all three styles, but to achieve the proper effect, he must choose the style appropriate to the composition and mood of the audience. As Cicero learned, improper use of rhetoric can be disastrous.

Fortunately, most people who misuse these styles are not executed, just criticized. The rhetoric of Professor John Fleming's column last Monday, "A Free Ride," has caused hurt feelings for many graduate students. Our initial critique assumes certain knowledge about graduate students at Princeton and is intended as a stylistic mirror to demonstrate the offensiveness of Fleming's. Here is a clearer, "plain" one.

For our initial response, e-mail gsg@princeton.edu.

The problem starts with tone. Fleming's word choice tends toward "grand," and the voice he adopts is arch. And so in his comparison of his neighborhood and Butler, and his relief at the institutional divide separating the two, he sounds like Marie Antoinette living in a grand palace while the people of Paris starve, saying "Let them eat cake!" Since most of us do not know Fleming personally, we must understand this persona in its published context.

Which leads to a consideration of audience. For whom is Fleming writing? For some reason, a fairly wide gap separates graduate from undergraduate students at Princeton, and the Prince is largely geared toward the latter. Arguably, most undergrads are not well informed about our lives here. So either Fleming is having a snide little chuckle at our expense, or he has miscalculated his satire, as this kind of humor relies on the entire audience sharing the correct basic knowledge about the topic of the satire, so that they understand when something is a joke and when something is serious.

Further, from what position is Fleming speaking? He alludes to having been a graduate student here, but that was forty years ago. Is he lambasting the University for the poor conditions of the 70-year-old "temporary" Butler "potting sheds"? Or now that he's faculty, does he feel he can make cheap shots with authority?

Because calling our lifestyle here "sybaritic" (luxurious, sensualist, even effeminate!) and describing the shuttle as a "scam" just sounds low. Rest assured: Graduate students are not wealthy (about $12-20k before taxes); we work very hard in many capacities here (student, preceptor, lecturer, support staff, recruiter); our housing is in varying states of acceptability (Butler itself is plagued with structural flaws from the foundations up, including endemic mold and poor insulation), and all of our housing is up to a half-hour walk from campus. We are working with the Graduate School and other University offices to address our concerns. But they are real, and fundamental. Would-be comics must be careful in dealing with other people's pain. Our housing and the shuttle are misplaced topics for a faculty member's (presumed) satire to a largely undergraduate audience, especially because our battles are so hard-fought, and in progress.

But the most disturbing part of the column was Fleming's comments about who rides the shuttle. Despite his stated enjoyment of the "upliftingly multicultural" ride, he clearly telegraphs his discomfort about feeling like a minority, and again, makes a comment of indeterminate meaning when he wonders "what Admiral King thinks" about Chinese being the common language on the shuttle from Butler. Fleming does not include the fact that King led the offensive against the Japanese in World War II, although he rests the entire column on this provocative and opaque invitation to imagine . . . something. What? If the rest of the column has made you uncomfortable, you are likely to imagine some very uncharitable opinions, to which Fleming might seem to subscribe. The same goes for his glance at the change in Butler's nomenclature from housing for married students to . . . other. Does he refer to all couples without legal documents of marriage, or only certain ones?

So it is difficult to tell when Fleming means what he says, and when or if he ironically means the opposite. And he is, at best, inconsistent. If he really does mean that he is grateful that the University has "shielded" his high-priced home from "ticky-tacky" Butler, and the graduate students who are apparently assimilated to this ticky-tackiness (" . . . they are there and doing their graduate student thing — depressing our property values."), then does he truly think the shuttle ride an "upliftingly multicultural" experience? However, if he means the opposite of what he said about Butler (and its residents), then one might conclude that he also means the opposite about the shuttle ride.

Please advise, Professor Fleming — in the plain style.

This letter is endorsed by the Executive Committee of the Graduate Student Government, the Butler Committee, the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars, the GSG International Students' Concerns Committee, and the Council of International Graduate Students.

Meredith Safran is Press Secretary of the Graduate Student Government.