First they came for the fight song...

vapspwi

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Why do we have a faculty senate? How lame are these people?
I assume they exist to represent the interests of the faculty in the same way that student government represents the interest of the student body. (Other items on the recent agenda, for example, include recommendations for improving on-campus childcare.) It doesn't seem ridiculous that the faculty senate exists, but it does seem ridiculous that they feel the need to meddle in areas that are none of their concern, like the lyrics to the fight song.
 

GTCrew4b

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I assume they exist to represent the interests of the faculty in the same way that student government represents the interest of the student body. (Other items on the recent agenda, for example, include recommendations for improving on-campus childcare.) It doesn't seem ridiculous that the faculty senate exists, but it does seem ridiculous that they feel the need to meddle in areas that are none of their concern, like the lyrics to the fight song.
It is completely ridiculous. I’m sorry that you were involved in either/both.
 

vapspwi

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It is completely ridiculous. I’m sorry that you were involved in either/both.
I’m not (and have never been) involved in either, but why is it ridiculous? Like I said, they need to stay in their lane, but what’s ridiculous about having a body that represents the interests of a group to the administration of a large bureaucracy like Georgia Tech?

JRjr
 

GTCrew4b

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The name, roberts rules useage, and general formal nature. These types of organizations look for things to fix to justify their existence in times when things are good. That’s why they stray “out of their lane” so often. Having a permanent official body is unnecessary. They are employees of the school. This is basically unionizing without calling it as much.
 

ElCidBUZZingFAN

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I assume they exist to represent the interests of the faculty in the same way that student government represents the interest of the student body. (Other items on the recent agenda, for example, include recommendations for improving on-campus childcare.) It doesn't seem ridiculous that the faculty senate exists, but it does seem ridiculous that they feel the need to meddle in areas that are none of their concern, like the lyrics to the fight song.
Us normies just call our representatives to upper management "bosses."
 

gtleviathan

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If you're so inclined, you can submit a message to President Cabrera with this web form:


I figure I'll send a short "please leave the fight song alone" message - couldn't hurt.

JRjr
Thanks for this. I just sent mine. Here it is in case anyone wants to copy pasta.

Dr. Cabrera:

It has come to my attention that a proposal to change a lyric in the Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech song may be presented to you from the Faculty Senate. As an alumnus of GT, I wanted to drop a short note to you opposing this proposal. The Rambling Wreck is a tradition near and dear to me and I do not wish to see it changed for politically expedient reasons. I applaud Georgia Tech's commitment to encouraging female enrollment and empowerment on campus and I believe the results of that commitment are obvious in the demographic changes I've seen over the last several decades. An empty gesture such as the one in this proposal will not advance that effort in any meaningful way. In fact, a plain reading of the current lyrics demonstrates that any perceived discrimination is actually nonexistent. (ie, both "daughters" and "sons" are being encouraged to "cheer" for the White and Gold, though perhaps one gender is encouraged to do so more vulgarly. Neither gender is encouraged to "join" the team they are cheering.)

I anticipate the majority of feedback you receive on this topic from alumni will echo my sentiment. And I trust you will see that the traditions of Georgia Tech belong more rightly with the alumni, rather than the faculty. Thank you for representing the interests of this critical constituency and protecting the traditions that Tech graduates have held in esteem for generations and the world over. THWG!
 

RussianOffense

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I'm all for diversity and inclusion but this doesn't do anything for either and the wording change doesn't even make sense. In my view, all this does is temporarily appease a few grievance mongerers and alienate/annoy a lot of people who might otherwise support diversity and inclusion.
 

vapspwi

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Us normies just call our representatives to upper management "bosses."
I’m at GTRI (research faculty), so I guess I have a foot in the academic world and (more of a) foot in the corporate world. I’ve never had any interest in faculty senate goings-on until this fight song stuff (something I actually care about and that impacts me).

Within GTRI, it seems like a corporate chain of command with various levels of bosses, but it merges with academia when you get to the top and the director of GTRI is a VP of GT. I guess (given that there are like 1800 faculty at GT across some significantly different organizations) it doesn’t seem outrageous to me to have an organization where representatives get together to discuss issues and make recommendations. As far as I know, they don’t have any real power - I’ve always envisioned it as a sort of advisory board. *shrug* I guess I don’t know or care enough about it to be outraged.

But I do care about the fight song, and I did sent a message to Cabrera expressing my opinion, which seems like a worthwhile endeavor. Surely the opinions of alumni/donors/fans carry more weight in this case than a bunch of faculty with little or no connection to the traditions of the institute.

JRjr
 

Walton

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This is a litttle personal for me because my daughter will be going to Tech in the fall and will be CHEERING on the brave and bold and not joining.

It is such a stupid purposed changed; it is less inclusive. Only a fraction of women at Tech “join” the sports programs and it isn’t like they can’t cheer for all the other athletes.
 

coit

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They can change the fight song all they want, but that doesn't mean anyone has to sing it that way.

Some folks, including @GTMom, sing the Budweiser song, as the Buzzweiser song or some BS.

Some folks think the song Mony Mony has an extra line in the chorus.

Some folks sing "Fight, win, drink, get naked" if you know what I mean.
 

vapspwi

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They can change the fight song all they want, but that doesn't mean anyone has to sing it that way.

Some folks, including @GTMom, sing the Budweiser song, as the Buzzweiser song or some BS.
Indeed they can’t make you sing it, but once they start meddling with it a) the new version becomes the “official” version that will be taught going forward, and b) you can be sure they they won’t stop there when they start poking at it.

I’d like to delay that as long as possible.

JRjr
 

The Jacket

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The Faculty Senate voted to support a proposal to encourage
I feel like I just had a stroke. Unfortunately it does not seem to have killed me. If it had, maybe I'd never have to read anything like that again.
 

The Jacket

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"An empty gesture such as the one in this proposal will not advance that effort in any meaningful way." <-- Truth
This was not simply an empty gesture. It was an empty gesture to express a meaningless opinion with respect to a potential decision as to whether social pressure should be applied to an effectively impotent collective, should they decide to disclose on paper whether there is consensus among them regarding song lyrics which are never read from paper, and whether those lyrics should be changed on pieces of paper which will never be read enough to have any real impact on the lyrics which are sung.
 

ElCidBUZZingFAN

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They can change the fight song all they want, but that doesn't mean anyone has to sing it that way.

Some folks, including @GTMom, sing the Budweiser song, as the Buzzweiser song or some BS.

Some folks think the song Mony Mony has an extra line in the chorus.

Some folks sing "Fight, win, drink, get naked" if you know what I mean.
Yes cause these are definitely the type of people that wouldn’t push their cause any further than only changing the lyrics.

Oh…
Expect Georgia Tech to take larger steps toward improving inclusion.
 

Akinji07

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Until we start winning some games and make a bowl game I don’t care if they send boys to cheer and the girls to yell to hell with Georgia. It might be an improvement.
 

RoanokeJacket

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Given the makeup of the student body how the Hell can they be more "inclusive"?

Everybody knows what they mean.
 

ncjacket

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This was not simply an empty gesture. It was an empty gesture to express a meaningless opinion with respect to a potential decision as to whether social pressure should be applied to an effectively impotent collective, should they decide to disclose on paper whether there is consensus among them regarding song lyrics which are never read from paper, and whether those lyrics should be changed on pieces of paper which will never be read enough to have any real impact on the lyrics which are sung.
Well done.
 
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