The College made the front page of The New York Times this Saturday, but not because the Trustees named its 18th president. Times reporter Katie Zernike filed a report from Amherst this weekend entitled "Professors Protest as Students Debate," in which she noted a disparity between the sentiments of the student body and a more vocal anti-war faculty.

Zernike was correct. The faculty make their opinions heard about the war. Many professors have publicly engaged in protest, signed petitions and even distributed informational material in Valentine. We applaud their efforts and encourage all faculty members to continue to tell us their views. Yet, the article gives the impression that students at the College feel pressure from their professors to mimic the same anti-war sentiments.

We find that the article makes a false connection between faculty protest and her attitude towards student protest-we find that students do not seem to be under pressure from the faculty to protest against the war. The faculty has been predominantly accepting, or at least tolerant, of all of our viewpoints. To leave this unsaid is to tell only part of the story.

In addition, Zernike inaccurately generalizes the views of the student body. Though the students have been admittedly quieter than their professors, Zernike underrepresents the significant contingent of students who have vocally expressed their anti-war views. More than 100 students have traveled as far as New York and Washington to engage in protests. Zernike seems to view the quieter reaction of the students as an indication of a conservative and even pro-war student body. There are pro-war students, and many of us remain undecided, but nothing about the student body's actions thus far indicate the trend alluded to in the article. "The war is disclosing role reversals, between professors shaped by Vietnam protests and a more conservative student body traumatized by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001," Zernike asserts.

Finally, Zernike doesn't understand the source of the perceived silence of students. This war is only a few weeks old and we are a generation of students who are unfamiliar with a protest culture. We have been taught to think through our views before proclaiming them loudly to the world, and thinking about the war is what many of us are still doing. We are not apathetic to what is happening in our world and a lack of protest does not indicate a lack of interest. Just because we have not yet mirrored our Vietnam-era predecessors is no justification for assuming that "The students ... have yet to be swept up."