What sets AU apart from other top liberal arts universities around the country? I'm not talking about our academic programs, our professors, our extracurricular offerings or even our status as a national arboretum. As important as those traits may be, the meat and potatoes of one's experience here rests on the composition of the student body. I'd wager that sharing in the varying lifestyles and experiences of our peers, we grow more and learn more than any lecturer could relate or any textbook could reveal. In terms of our peers and their racial/ethnic and socioeconomic status, how diverse are we? How varied are the experiences that we bring with us and what effect will these experiences have on our developing outlook on the world and that of others?
As far as I have seen in my four years at this fine learning institution, I have seen a wide array of experiences. In this regard, I have been pleasantly surprised. But I would still offer that they are not varied enough to truly live up to our university's credo of "Ideas in Action, Action into Service."
How few of us can truly relate to and work with those who live in the public housing units of Anacostia? How few of us can fully understand the difficulties faced by Latin American immigrants in the tenements of Columbia Heights? How few of us are continuously conscious of the fact that at some time, at some point in our family history, be it distant or recent, our forbearers were members of an underclass that struggled to get us where we are today? This empathy deficit renders an attitude that is dismissive of the suffering that surrounds our middle class existence. And it is only getting worse.
In the recent book "Scandals of Higher Education," Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco notes that the number of students from the lowest income quartile at private universities has stayed around 10 percent during the latter part of the 20th century while the percentage of students from the top quartile rose from about 30 percent to 50 percent. Mr. Delbanco concludes, "In short, there are very few poor students at America's top colleges and a large and growing number of rich ones." This constitutes a widespread system failure on the part of top colleges, and higher education institutions in general, to tackle issues of economic disparity in their admissions processes. This is a recipe for plutocracy if I have ever seen one.
Our top colleges and universities have been turned into factories of privilege in what Paul Krugman of The New York Times calls our "New Gilded Age." The Gilded Age was a time in late 19th century America that was characterized by minimal taxation, absence of regulation and an almost complete reliance on faith-based charity rather than government social programs. Our economic inequality has become so pervasive that America in 2007 is starting to look a lot like America in 1894. Indeed, many of our political leaders and economic robber barons have served so well as the Guardians of Privilege that we have been conserved right on back to levels of inequity not seen in over a century!
With graduation impending, the best advice I can offer comes from the words of a man who would be president, Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking at a college commencement in 2005, he stated:
"There is no community service requirement in the real world; no one's forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and go chasing after the big house, and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you can buy. But I hope you don't. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own... Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential. And if we're willing to share the risks and the rewards this new century offers, it will be a victory for each of you, and for every American."
I hope we can close this empathy deficit we are facing and meet this challenge together. Thanks for reading.
Paul Perry is a senior in the School of International Service and a liberal columnist for The Eagle.
