Thought this was worth sharing. Read the blog post then take a look through the comments. I think you will find that Ms. Rodrigues does in fact get a little help from her friends.
http://blogs.middlebury.edu/onedeansview/2011/10/11/with-a-little-help-from-my-friends/
Thank you, Janet for your post. This has been an amazing conversation and in many of the posts above I have read ideas and emotions that I have felt but found it hard to put into words or process. Thank you all for providing me with some clarity.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to echo Janet’s call for us, as a school, to work on our capacity to be there for each other. This is, though, much harder said than done. I would argue that the fact that we aren’t ‘there for each other’ is what causes tremendous pressure in the first place. Addi spoke about how these pressures and expectations can be created by us ourselves, but to a large extent these pressures also arise from within the smaller immediate communities that we are placed within or choose to live within. And the pressures that this creates: those to conform and those that exclude are tremendous. Let me expand:
We live in our little bubble, we eat in the same dining halls, we live in the same dorms, we attend class together, but we also live in and create, year after year, a culture of divisions and exclusion. We hear so much language about ‘our’ Middlebury community. It is naïve to believe that Middlebury students are one united community. I have been here for three years now and yet why is it that sometimes, if not often, I feel that I am living in ‘their’ community and not my own?
Many at our school belong to and even define themselves by groups, teams and clubs, and these groups often find themselves, consciously or unconsciously, reinforcing ideas of privilege, hyper-masculinity, gendered roles or other ideas that drive deep wedges of separation into the fabric of this ‘community’.
There can also be a certain loss of freedom of choice when one falls into groups and it becomes all the more difficult to stand up to what one may consider wrong. I saw a Middlebury sports team t-shirt a few days ago that said “Pain is temporary, Glory is forever.” This begs the question: what sort of expectations are we creating for ourselves and each other? (And oftentimes the College administration is party to this process.) Are these expectations reasonable and is this not a scenario of a few making unilateral decisions for others?
We are all privileged to be at this school, and I do think the term ‘privilege’ is thrown around too often. But it has become almost taboo to talk about topics of privilege on campus. We need to begin to acknowledge that there remains a large group on this campus who display attitudes of privilege. Why is it that so many students at our college have only white, well-to-do friends? Why is it that there is disproportionally higher campus leadership from the minority groups on campus? Our system of living, our community is broken.
Continued..
ReplyDeleteOne can argue that these forms of separation are natural to schools our size, that people of similar interests and actions attract each other and naturally band into groups. And yes, every person is free to live their lives how they wish to, value their own priorities and build their own groups, but not when it comes at a cost to others. Not when our actions, the way we conduct ourselves, the way we dress, the way we speak, the way we drink takes away from another’s right to make those decisions for himself or herself.
Once we entered this institution, we held a responsibility to be a part of and contribute to a system of equal opportunity to all others who take part in it.
The reason I bring this up is that I strongly believe that issues around alcohol, dorm damage, and social divisions (and the factors that cause them) on campus are integrally related and trying to deal with them individually is an incomplete venture. This loss of freedom to choose is the primary roots of these problems and this is driven, at large, by the divisions we create on campus. Also, there exists a bubble of ignorance for those who do not have a broader view of who constitutes our community. For Middlebury to become a truer ‘community’, we would need to realize that it belongs not just to you and your friends, but to all those other students you may never meet, to the custodian who cleans your dorm, to the men and women who make our food, to our professors, to the public safety officers and so many others.
I realize that I am being very critical of our school community, and there are many aspects of life at Middlebury that I love and I have met many amazing people at this school. But we can do better than where we are. I think I am a pretty optimistic person and I have faith in our ability to change and improve. This truly hinges on everyone playing a part.
My plea is for each of us to take a minute out of our busy days and reflect on what pieces of the puzzle do we each represent. Ask questions like, who are my friends? Why? Who has been there for me when I have needed them? What have I done for them? Do I act like my true self? Have I left someone feeling excluded? Do I know my custodian’s name, have I spoken to him or her? Are my peers pressuring me to do things that I would not do otherwise?
I am First Year Counselor this year and I have forty amazing guys on my hall. They are excited to be at college and have tremendous energy. All I wish is that they will have a chance to be driven by this energy and find their own destinations instead of being driven by the expectations of others. School work is hard enough, I wish that they will not need to view life outside the classroom as a struggle.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope my ramblings make sense to you.