Concerned students of Professor Sean Tarter contacted The Informer after finding closed doors around every corner. Members of the professor’s Fall 2008 class unanimously supported a petition delivered to President Reveley, the Economics Department, and The Flat Hat. Members of the course strongly expressed their interest in further pursuing their Fall course’s content with a follow-up course in the Spring.

Former students of the professor have gained substantial benefits from the material taught in the class. One student was accepted to a prestigious graduate program at Columbia University; the professor was then sent a letter by Columbia asking him to send more students with exposure to the course’s content.

Professor Tarter often hosted extended office hours and in one notable case taught a supplemental lecture, in response to students’ requests, from 9 PM on a Friday night until 1 AM in the morning. According to Stephan Jensen (’09), “nearly the entire class showed up… I don’t know any professor who would spend hours with students talking, that’s pretty extraordinary.”

Reviews of Professor Tarter available on ratemyprofessor.com frequently invoke the word “brilliant” as a primary descriptor. One entry from a student of Econ 400 says, “this class was the most challenging, most rewarding, and most memorable experience[s] of my college career… you will not find an instructor who is more knowledgeable, helpful, or genuine at William and Mary.” Most entries describe the courses taught by Professor Tarter as extremely difficult, but are nonetheless extremely favorable.

Students enrolled in the Fall 2008 course studied financial derivatives and were each responsible for maintaining a mock $100,000 trading platform throughout the semester. Many desired to continue the course’s content into the Spring 2009 semester. Professor Tarter was contacted by The Informer and shared, “the students wanted the class, and I wanted to do it.” Attempting to establish the course, Mr. Tarter decided that “I didn’t care if I was paid,” saying that sharing his knowledge is his primary mission in his life.

Efforts to establish a course for the current semester were met with support by various faculty members, including Economics Department Chair Will Hausman. According to Mr. Tarter, “Will Hausman, David Lutzer, and even Eric Jensen tried to help, but for reasons we really don’t understand, we were unable to proceed.” The course was ultimately unable to be offered this semester, much to his students’ disappointment.

The petition that students then took upon themselves to draft read, “Adjunct Professor Tarter’s dedication to teaching is evident to anyone who has encountered him in an educational setting,” and details the particularly astonishing feats the professor when through for his students. Students Julian Vignaud (’09) and Stephan Jensen (’09) decided to circulate the petition to express “in very clear terms that not having this professor teach the course was madness.”

Jeremy Powers (’09) formerly took two courses with Professor Tarter and was a supporter of the petition effort. “The amount of material that Sean was able to not only cover but make understandable is simply amazing,” says Mr. Powers, “his expectations were high, but he taught with artful simplicity and made himself completely available to answer questions after every class, even holding 4 hour review sessions on Friday nights.”

Professor Tarter not only is an extremely engaging and talented professor, who shares mutual respect and admiration for his students, he is also suffering from a severe neurological disorder. His medical condition has caused him to go through great pains to teach. According to Mr. Tarter, it is worth it, “I am consistently blessed with the best students imaginable, both as academics and as people,” says Mr. Tarter, who describes a guiding mission in life to impart the knowledge he has acquired to students, no matter the personal cost.

Dean of Arts and Sciences Carl Strikwerda was contacted to determine the effects of budget cuts on the employment of adjunct professors. According to Mr. Strikwerda, “no one was let go or had a contract canceled because of the budget. We were very careful only to hire the adjuncts we truly needed this semester to meet student enrollment needs, but the number of adjuncts this spring is not significantly different from past semesters.”

Mr. Strikwerda also said that “generally, we do not have adjuncts teaching for free.” He notes that there are a few exceptions and believes that there have been instances where “due to special circumstances, we have allowed someone to teach and they have refused payment or we have allowed them to teach for free,” but that, “I can’t recall any instances of this right now.”

Mr. Tarter notes that even if the course had been established this semester, his doctors would have strongly opposed his plans to teach. His medical condition is currently quite severe, but Mr. Tarter plans to work as hard as possible to be well enough to return next semester. Although the student-initiated effort to create a class this semester failed, Mr. Tarter says, “I have only experienced gracious support and encouragement from the school and have absolutely no complaints.”

Professor Sean Tarter hopes to return to teaching in the Fall 2009 semester. Many of the students contacted for this story will have graduated by that time, losing the opportunity to continue studying under a professor they consider to be a true asset to William and Mary.

 Also, if young adults are introduced by parents and other adults to alcohol as something to be enjoyed in moderation, as is the case in other countries, the current culture of binge drinking would be challenged and respect for the law would be bolstered.  Prohibition does not work, ever.  What prohibition does do, time and again, is contribute to a criminalize class and a dangerous subculture which would otherwise not exist.

Education is certainly a step towards moderating behavior, but never eliminating certain behavior .  I would point to education campaigns against cigarettes.  The use rates may have declined, and smokers are aware that their decision may lead to lung cancer and other fatal diseases, but yet there are still smokers.  And there are many young smokers.  So education may have some benefit, but cannot be seen as a remedy to the current issue of ‘underage’ drinking.  I would also point out that alcohol, in comparison to cigarettes, has no significant health affects if consumed in moderation.  There is no need to education people out of consuming alcohol.  Such an ‘education’ campaign could be seen as nothing other than ill-informed propaganda.

I would dispute the notion that either police forces or school authorities do little to punish 18-20 year old adults who drink alcohol.  My college, William and Mary, is a relatively tame and study-focused campus, yet 10% of students face sanctions for alcohol consumption annually.  One in fourteen students are apprehended by the campus police each year.  And punishments are no slap on the wrist.  Many are assigned probation, community service, and if sent to court by police much more.  It is inaccurate to say there is insufficient policing.  What I would argue is that there is no need for such policing.  In 20 years it has failed to accomplish the elimination of drinking by the 18-20 year age group.  It has pushed parties off-campus, encouraged irresponsible drinking, and blemished the transcripts of many otherwise law-abiding students.

The answer is not increasing policing or phony eduction aimed to scare 18-20 year old adults of alcohol.  What the answer should be is to lower the drinking age to 18, to encourage parental responsibility in socializing children to alcohol, and to treat adults as full legal citizens.  An innovative proposition to change the law has been made by Choose Responsibility, which was founded by the former president of Middlebury College.  If you would like to consider reasonable alternatives to the current prohibition, here is a link to their website: http://www.chooseresponsibility.org/

The national drinking age was mandated to be 21 two decades ago, in the interest of reducing drunken driving fatalities. Drinking fatalities uniformly decreased across all age groups since the mid 1980’s, indicating no direct link between the prohibition on 18-21 year old drinking and highway fatalities. Interestingly, there was a brief increase in the years following the change. But wait, you say, M.A.D.D. runs commercials all the time saying that the law is working. They neglect to consider the uniform decrease across age groups and refuse to consider other variables leading to a decrease in fatalities, including seatbelt mandates, airbag development, safer vehicles, and strict drunk driving laws. The founder of M.A.D.D., Candy Lightner, left the group in disgust, accusing the group of morphing into a neo-prohibitionist outfit.

Not only has the 21 year limit not met its objective, it has also denied full legal rights to adult citizens in this country.  18-20 year olds are eligible for jury duty, have the right to vote, serve in the military, can sign contracts and open bank accounts, and can adopt children. The only significant right denied is the right to drink alcohol. And very, very few of the citizens who chose to drink alcohol at 21 wait until that age. They break the law consistently. Millions of 18-20 year olds at college campuses across the country drink alcohol. Many do so recklessly and off-campus, a direct consequence of the current national alcohol policy. These young adults break this law because they know it is not fair and not reasonable. Many in this age group have been abroad, and in countries as varied as China, France, South Africa, Brazil, England, Australia, Mexico, Russia (to name a few) they are recognized as adults entrusted to chose to have a beer with dinner. In the United States, long considered a beacon of liberty and freedom, having a beer with dinner can result in arrest and months tangled in a legal mess. That happened to my roommate after a night of moderate drinking. The current law needs to be changed, a hysterical and ill-informed pressure group has done enough to harm our rights as citizens.