There are a few things I’d like to say about the trustees.
My first issue has already been Wespoken about, and need not be repeated. This is the disturbing conversation I had at the trustee mixer in Zelnick about freshmen gender-neutral housing, when the trustee I spoke to was very stubborn, close-minded, and seemed to think that since his opinion is that the issue is not important, that’s just the way it is, despite the nearly-unanimous consensus of this campus.
On the same issue, though not related to the trustees, my roommate and I were recently featured in an article of a national newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor. I e-mailed media relations to see if the article could be linked from the front page of the website, as all Wesleyan-related news articles are, and heard no response. I feel that this is because the article was about our gender-neutral housing arrangement, and the university fears being seen as “liberal,” despite the fact that progressive politics is a huge source of pride for the majority of its students.
My second point about the trustees is simply that, at the mixer, I realized that every single one of them is wealthier than nearly anyone I’ve ever met in my life. What is it about the job of trustee that precludes moderately successful Wesleyan alumni from serving? Why can the position only be held by higher-ups at biotech companies or Goldman-Sachs management? At least three of our trustees are Goldman-Sachs upper-levels. Nearly half of them are successful enough that there are Wikipedia articles written about them.
My third issue is that at that mixer, I spoke with the chair of the trustees about the fact that certain majors, such as the sciences, seem to be receiving extra support, while others, such as Film Studies, are forced to limit the number of majors due to receiving less support. The chair denied this imbalance, citing the construction of the new Film Studies building as proof of the University’s support of that department and its resultant flourishing. I later learned that the film department receives an annual budget of $0, and that the new building, like all its programs and operations, was paid for with donations and alumni support. I feel resentful about being deceived in this way.
Regarding the University’s new emphasis on science, I was disturbed by some of the language in the Strategic Plan for 2005-2010. The plan proposes building the school’s academic reputation through the use of “previously unexploited strength in the sciences.” As a science major, I take offense at the view that our departments are a resource to be exploited. Later, the report goes on to cite impressive statistics about our science departments, and the need to make these numbers more “visible to prospective students.” Overall, the impression given is that the trustees haphazardly stumbled upon a science department made strong by the hard work of its students and faculty, and wondered why they weren’t “exploiting” it already.
Another issue with this section of the report is that, anticipating “a 50 percent increase in the proportion of science and math students,” they conclude “we should be able to staff this increase with our current science faculty.” This semester, with the highest enrollment in introductory science classes in school history; with organic lab so overenrolled that night sections had to be opened which could easily run towards midnight; with organic lecture so overenrolled that the professor couldn’t find enough TA’s to keep the sessions as small as he feels necessary; with dozens of students getting closed out of basic-level math classes like statistics; it seems as though the trustees were unrealistic in their claims.
Trustees: if you’re going to abandon other departments to focus on exploiting the sciences, the least you could do is expand the science faculty to absorb all the new majors.
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