By John J. Neuhauser
As I write this, summer is literally in full bloom here on the banks of the Winooski River. While most of our students departed in May for summer jobs or saltwater beaches, the Saint Michael’s campus is now humming with a host of activities taking place in our facilities — from the Vermont Quilt Festival to a Catholic youth ministry program to the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy, a three-week total immersion program for over 250 middle- to high-school students. So, although the grounds crew is cutting grass instead of plowing snow, we still have many young faces surrounding us, even as we look forward to the return of our own students at the end of August.
The summer months give us time to assess all the experiences of the past year and begin some serious planning for the next decade and beyond. Saint Michael’s continues as a remarkable institution that fosters change in the lives of students through their interaction with good and caring faculty and staff, great ideas and, frankly, each other. So much is done very well here that we have to be careful in our planning to not alter course too radically. Yet, to ignore the current turmoil on the American and world economic scene or the challenges facing higher education would be irresponsible.
Saint Michael’s will clearly remain a residential, Catholic, liberal arts college, with all that has historically implied. However, we must honestly confront the economic pressures facing families, the rapidly rising cost of energy and the exploding array of knowledge that is thought necessary to live, in Montaigne’s words, “appropriately,” while simultaneously recognizing that we want to cherish wisdom which has stood the test of time and remain true to our fundamental obligation to enroll and graduate students who are self-consciously reflective in all they do. We have to make choices about what sampling of the vast universe of information is fitting for our curriculum and how this curriculum might be expressed to students in an effective pedagogical and financially prudent manner. Tackling these complex issues will require creative thinking and intensive dialogue because superior, transformative higher education is an inherently time-consuming, labor-intensive and expensive endeavor, but we certainly have to put our shoulders to the task. It is our charge.
During the next year, in these pages, you will read about some of the thoughts of the Saint Michael’s community as we deliberate and form the next iteration of our vision and strategic plan. Of course, you are invited to respond. Indeed, I hope many of you will join this important conversation.
This is a fundamentally important project and it seems to me that President Neuhauser’s brief thoughts frame the issues in a very candid way. Achieving the balance he suggests between educational quality and economic reality will not be easy. It may not even be possible. But it is essential to try.
As I near retirement and inevitably review how the world has changed, one of the fundamental changes that I see are rising barriers to upward mobility. When I attended St. Michael’s (1964-8), I believe it would be true that most of my classmates were first-genration college students. Certainly few were more than second generation. Higher education was open to all at a tuition rate that one might cover much of by hard work in the summer and Christmas. In an era of $40,000 a year private college tuitions, that is no longer true. Access to private colleges increasingly is the result of parental wealth, not individual merit.
I know, the world is not fair and no one has a right to attend private college. But the colleges and the nation lose something important if the already affluent are the only ones who can take advantage of this opportunity. A bland homogeneity yields a narrow perspective to the detriment of all. I do not wish to glorify poverty, but a student body full of students who all have someone to fall back on is not an intersting prospect. Such a community exists in isolation from the real world – a poor environment for education.
I am proud and happy that I have achieved a secure economic life, but I know I would not be better off if I had spent my formative years associating onbly with those who had already made it.
You’re post hits a lot of important points. I couldn’t agree more with nearly everything you said. As a student who’s parents struggle to send me to Saint Michael’s because of outrageous tuition expenses, the bland, affluent student population that can easily fall back on mommy and daddy for gas money to drive their BMW or SUV from the suites to Tarrant annoys me every time. It doesn’t annoy me that these students drive a fancier vehicle than mine … it annoys me based on the point you made; they’re out of touch with reality. We need to continue to work hard so that students who deserve a college education based on merit, not affluence, don’t have sky-rocketing educational cost impairing their reward for hard work.
Thanks for your very thoughtful comment.