I am a freshman, aka “first year” at Chatham University. I was genuinely very disappointed to hear that negative articles were written about the men on campus.

These articles state that the men here are asking for special treatment, however, I cannot name one man here who believes he is above anyone or deserves more than others. Another argument is that the men here are held up on “pedestals” but none of us know what pedestal that is.

Chatham is all about equality, so that means every student here regardless of his or her gender is going to get treated equally. One of the main arguments included in these articles is that there have been instances where women proclaim to have gotten “cat-called” by the Rea House. However, coeducational schools always have stares and whistles coming from both sides of men and women simply because it is the norm and how students of the college age typically behave. Therefore, it happens at every university; in other words, it is inevitable.

All the guys I have met here are thrilled to be the first of everything here at Chatham; we could not be happier. Why would we want to destroy something we helped build? It’s not our intentions. Therefore, the men here on campus essentially are special not because we are the first of everything, but because without us, this university could have been on its last legs. To say that we are “crying discrimination” is a bit of an overstatement because all we are asking for is a, “Hello, how are you?” and a response such as, “I’m doing well, how are you?”. However, instead of having that type of interaction, the men have noticed that some of the women here will walk by us with belittling looks on their faces as if we do not belong here, preventing Chatham University from practicing what it preaches, which is the ideas of comfort and diversity.

Chatham does strongly believe in the concept of diversity, so the behavior in these articles do not represent this school well. We will make Chatham a better campus, since we are the select few guys that were accepted here and we share similar values to the women who were here before us and therefore, together, we will help this campus grow. I feel as though we should not be looked at as heroes but as pioneers since we are equal to all the students here at Chatham University.

Hopefully, we can put all of this negativity behind us and look forward to the future of Chatham.