This letter responds to a letter from the office of Dr. Victor Considerant, Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Northwestern University. I’m afraid English is not my language and my secretary could not read this over.
I’m curious at oddity of your questions about a student named Thomas Gilbert, who you recently expelled from your body because of the accusations of his matriculation at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad. I must inform Dr. Considerant that no student with that name exists in our records.
I have not read his illegal writings, but my secretary did, who talked a lot about it comfortably. I believe Mr. Gilbert has long had the imagination to study abroad in Denmark, travels around Europe, and engages in deep and artistic things, including but not limited to strange games with various people and fabricating events in a way that he made them look as if they really happened.
Your confusion is true because in reality, none of the events described ever took place and the writing is apparently just a detailed wish fulfillment on the student page. Furthermore, I am not sure that any of the characters described in his writings exist, although it is possible Soderquist was a visiting member in a “Study of Hegel’s System” course taught a few years back. I regret the student’s dismissal from your school, because he seems very bright and happy on opportunities for foreign study, and if you let him know that if he decides to study abroad, we will examine his application for careful consideration and not hold deportation against him.
However, I must take issue with some of the phrases you direction to my business. It’s not your right to say that my school is “under” your own, that it is “a lousy league, if acceptance of such audacity makes it an eyesore on the face of academia,” “lack of accountability only matched by its managerial incompetence,” “low wages, leading to an environment of cynicism and mistrust and mutiny among the faculty,” and mention of my mother country’s “problems with minority integration.” I would have you know that Denmark is a cozy place, and although we as a trial abroad institution is somewhat unusual and hardly perfect, we are constantly working to improve ourselves through intellectual exploration. I urge Dr. Considerant to visit Denmark and DIS and experience at first hand, as it may help to broaden his own horizons and make calm.
Med venlig hilsen/ Danish for with kind regards,
Anders Uhrskov
Director of the Danish Institute for Study Abroad
Please sign me up. I read all of Kierkegaard at your age, so I expect some philosophical discourse – with the Christianity included.