I think we should question why people would associate a university with every guest speaker and everything they say as being authoritative statements of the university and their staff.
I think we should question why people would associate a university with every guest speaker and everything they say as being authoritative statements of the university and their staff.
So when a speaker is invited who is, for example, blatantly hostile to the advertised mission of the university, it raises eyebrows. And it paints a contradictory pictures that devalues the university itself. Or worse, if the message is blatantly hostile to a subset of students, it could discourage some people from even wanting to attend!
People work hard to get accepted to universities which they respect, and they have a vested interest in maintaining their university’s respect in the public eye.
I can see from your point several value loaded points where students will disagree with each other. The advertised mission of the university being one of them, as people often argue what the point of university training is and how much of education is learning things, research, and social networking. Then there is things like the student theater, which are often not just blatantly hostile to a subset of students and very much discourage some people from wanting to attend to social events. Then we have fraternities and sororities which activity often paints a unfavorable pictures of university life, even going so far as being occasionally borderline criminal in their activities.
What should be a appropriate response to students who disagree on how the university experience should be?