How mant people in the Allston community has she ever met? Has she ever spoken with the negative people she mentions or attended a community meeting? A short walk from the Ed Portal into Allston past some of Harvard's vacant buildings might explain to her why more than a "few" people are less than thrilled with Harvard's impact on Allston over the past several years.“The negative voices in Allston ring loud but they also ring few,” Yu said. “The majority of the community is excited about the benefit from this presence.”
Harvard sophmore states the "majority" opinion of the Allston community
Qi Yu, a Harvard sophomore, spends 3 hours a week volunteering at the Harvard Allston Education Portal. I'm sure the tutoring she is doing is great. I also don't know what qualifies her to make this statement to the Harvard Crimson:
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I've met her. She's nice, and obviously very generous with her time. I'm pleased she's tutoring and like that she's interested in Allston.
ReplyDeleteI also think she's probably on to something. I'm far more excited about Harvard's plans than apprehensive. This student is certainly entitled to her assessment of what she's heard in the neighborhood -- as entitled as any of us are to speak for the community.
Allston doesn't have a monolithic opinion about Harvard's plans. Why wouldn't we expect a bright student to pick up on that?
You are right that people in Allston have a range of positive and negative feelings about what Harvard has done in the past and what Harvard may or may not do in the future.
ReplyDeleteSure, she is entitled to her opinion. But what she went way beyond stating her opinion - she stated the opinion of other people who she has never met and about whom she knows very little.
It would be equally inappropriate for me to characterize how the majority of Harvard students or faculty feel about Allston.
I suppose. I'm just not sure it's in the best taste to make an issue/blog post out of a pretty harmless comment by someone who's young, obviously a good person and interested in our community. Who knows whether the Crimson quoted her accurately, or took her comments out of context?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd be more inclined to let it slide than to take offense and post a Googleable complaint about her. (If you type " "Qi Yu" and harvard" into google, this website's post about her comes up third.)
So -- Qi Yu, if you're reading this, thanks very much for taking an interest in our community. We appreciate all you're doing and welcome you back often!