Dear Roth,
Well. One year down. Can you believe it was just over a year ago when you interviewed for this gig? There were 12 of us Wesleyan students in that room. You really impressed us: An articulate President! A visionary! A Wesleyan alum…from when it was co-ed (gasp!), and progressive and idealistic and unique! Yes, President Roth, we projected many things upon you, unfairly or not, hoping after you were named that you could transform this school into what we all knew it could be.
I haven’t lost hope yet. But you’ve been brought back down to earth, for better or for worse. You have seen that Wes is not the same school it was in the ’70s. It’s more complicated, more hard to define, more challenging in this market-driven, U.S. News & World Report-ranking, insane ivory tower that is liberal-arts higher education. As you have put it yourself, the best way to describe our school is that it’s “Wesleyanish,” hardly a moniker that can be featured in a prospectus.
Remember when you wanted to double the endowment? That new $160 million science center that your predecessor left you has made that a bit trickier. And it’s become clear even in this short year that our financial aid initiatives, while stretching our own money purse, are nowhere near the likes of our peers. To think that a student will pick Wes while knowing that they will have zero loans at Williams is, well, unthinkable. I’m not saying they won’t want to come here, but, in the end, education is still a market and we are not a bargain. You know this already—your financial aid announcement so soon in your administration was admirable—but it bears mentioning that Roth-the-visionary is going to have to work harder on being Roth-the-downsizer and Roth-the-fundraiser, both of which are not nearly as fun.
Your “listening tour” has been impressive. We told you to be accessible, and we have seen your face at more events on campus this year than we saw Bennet during our first three years combined. But for every sports game or play you have attended (each time garnering our respect and pride), you have fallen from our grace with every silly comment that makes us seem like oblivious children instead of students fully aware of the challenges facing this school, and even of our own idealism and weaknesses. The Argus editorial on that idealism put it very well a week ago: “Don’t tell us what to stand for” (“We know the ’60s are over,” April 25, Volume CXLIII, Number 43). Let us make our mistakes, but don’t tell us we don’t know what we’re doing.
Looming challenges stand before us that you are already well aware of. The intellectual environment of this school and its potential for creative production is ready for effervescence, for some real sharpening (as Richard Slotkin put it to you so succinctly). This is something you came in proposing to do, and I have no doubt that during your administration you will positively change the way this school teaches our students and thinks about learning. But you must also remember the nitty-gritty, on-the-ground challenges that deserve equal attention and that during your interview we students were not shy to talk about: a need to bring the community together, to overcome the fragmentation that inevitably leads to self-segregation of many types—and not just race. Yes, Roth, we need a unifying force, and whether it’s you or your administration, those objectives must be given time and consideration, something I have not seen from you as of yet.
Let’s not be too negative. No one doubts your love for this institution and no one doubts your ability to change this place for the better. We’re just anxious because we love this place just as much as you do. And we want to be a part of making it better—not necessarily different, but better. Indeed, we know we must be a part of the process to make it better.
So, Roth, kudos for getting through your first year at Wes. It wasn’t perfect, but nothing is. We’ll still be here, waiting, hoping, ready to make Wes better. Just don’t forget to keep us along for the ride.
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