I'm not a student, I'm a husband - R-MWC Reunion '08
Jun. 8th, 2008 | 01:43 pm
Last weekend, Elizabeth and I were in the US for her 5-year college reunion. The R-MWC reunion events are shared between classes celebrating every 5th anniversary of their graduation, and Elizabeth's year (class of '03) put in a good showing, with a large proportion of the alumna who attended being Reading Program alums, so I knew a lot of them. Photos from the event are up on Flickr: click below for the full set.
Those of you playing along at home will know that R-MWC has been the centre of controversy the last few years, after they suddenly decided to switch from a woman's college to co-ed (and change their name to Randolph College), cut staff and courses, and sell off prize pieces from the college museum's permanent art collection to shore up long-running (and long-denied) financial problems. Lawsuits from alumnae groups resulted, but were lost in the circuit courts and last week were ultimately quashed at appeal.
All of this meant that there was a heightened sensitivity amongst the alums to any male involvement in reunion. There were a small number of snide remarks and people jumping to conclusions over the contribution made by male students at some of the events, and several times I was asked by older alums if I was a student. Very few of the older alums had brought their partners with them, but I think it was mainly my closeness in age to the actual students which led people to assume I was one of them. The first time I was asked "Are you a student?", I simply quipped, "No, I'm a husband" without even thinking about it, and that became my standard response from then on. Later I realised that, in future, some form of branding might be in order:
I'm thinking of making it into a t-shirt.
Beneath the celebratory mood, there is a somewhat more gloomy outlook over the changes at the college. Overall the mood of alums seemed to be more accepting the older the alums were. The class of '03 were still decidedly frosty, in particular when they pointedly refused to stand to applaud college President John Kline's speech when every other class did. I can empathise with that; the memories of their woman's college days are still very fresh, and to be honest Kline did labour over his defence of the college's decisions in the last 2 years for far too long. I think it may have been a misguided attempt at openness in informing the older alums of what changes had gone on, but I don't think it was the time or place for a detailed no-apologies stance, which is how it came across. It was also clear that Kline has lost patience with the still-dissenting students on campus, which frankly I can understand given that a minority of them even resorted to physical harassment of male students at one point.
Nonetheless, deep divisions remain in both the student body and faculty; seven faculty members retired this year, far more than usual in one year, and only two of them showed up to the Dean's farewell speech for them. Several more have also had their jobs cut as part of the restructuring program. I have a somewhat unique position in that I contract for the college in a roundabout way as the IT Support for the Reading Program here in England, so I get snippets of the staff viewpoints as well as the students. I'm told that the division amongst the faculty has broken long-standing professional relationships on campus, with some former colleagues even refusing to attend the same functions because they don't even wish to see each other. Some faculty are also privately admitting that the enrolment numbers for next year, which have become a yardstick on which the success of the changes are being measured, are looking considerably lower than the college is publicly saying, though nothing will be certain until later in the year. I'm told that there is an additional demographic problem that will be facing all US colleges in the coming years, in that there is a significant dip approaching in the number of college-age students which will put pressure on all institutions' recruiting. If Randolph College starts to become less popular right as that dip comes over the horizon, the long-term outlook for the college is not especially rosy.
Those of you playing along at home will know that R-MWC has been the centre of controversy the last few years, after they suddenly decided to switch from a woman's college to co-ed (and change their name to Randolph College), cut staff and courses, and sell off prize pieces from the college museum's permanent art collection to shore up long-running (and long-denied) financial problems. Lawsuits from alumnae groups resulted, but were lost in the circuit courts and last week were ultimately quashed at appeal.
All of this meant that there was a heightened sensitivity amongst the alums to any male involvement in reunion. There were a small number of snide remarks and people jumping to conclusions over the contribution made by male students at some of the events, and several times I was asked by older alums if I was a student. Very few of the older alums had brought their partners with them, but I think it was mainly my closeness in age to the actual students which led people to assume I was one of them. The first time I was asked "Are you a student?", I simply quipped, "No, I'm a husband" without even thinking about it, and that became my standard response from then on. Later I realised that, in future, some form of branding might be in order:
I'm thinking of making it into a t-shirt.
Beneath the celebratory mood, there is a somewhat more gloomy outlook over the changes at the college. Overall the mood of alums seemed to be more accepting the older the alums were. The class of '03 were still decidedly frosty, in particular when they pointedly refused to stand to applaud college President John Kline's speech when every other class did. I can empathise with that; the memories of their woman's college days are still very fresh, and to be honest Kline did labour over his defence of the college's decisions in the last 2 years for far too long. I think it may have been a misguided attempt at openness in informing the older alums of what changes had gone on, but I don't think it was the time or place for a detailed no-apologies stance, which is how it came across. It was also clear that Kline has lost patience with the still-dissenting students on campus, which frankly I can understand given that a minority of them even resorted to physical harassment of male students at one point.
Nonetheless, deep divisions remain in both the student body and faculty; seven faculty members retired this year, far more than usual in one year, and only two of them showed up to the Dean's farewell speech for them. Several more have also had their jobs cut as part of the restructuring program. I have a somewhat unique position in that I contract for the college in a roundabout way as the IT Support for the Reading Program here in England, so I get snippets of the staff viewpoints as well as the students. I'm told that the division amongst the faculty has broken long-standing professional relationships on campus, with some former colleagues even refusing to attend the same functions because they don't even wish to see each other. Some faculty are also privately admitting that the enrolment numbers for next year, which have become a yardstick on which the success of the changes are being measured, are looking considerably lower than the college is publicly saying, though nothing will be certain until later in the year. I'm told that there is an additional demographic problem that will be facing all US colleges in the coming years, in that there is a significant dip approaching in the number of college-age students which will put pressure on all institutions' recruiting. If Randolph College starts to become less popular right as that dip comes over the horizon, the long-term outlook for the college is not especially rosy.