Common Platform Agenda Impractical for Students

To the Editor:

Why did the students who ran for MCSG on the Common Platform—students who believe Macalester “is seriously invested in reproducing institutional status quo” and criticize the school for failing to make “basic commitments to social justice and environmental sustainability every time”—choose to attend this college in the first place?

I came because I was impressed by the diversity, enthusiasm, and openness of the student body, and I am not disappointed by the atmosphere I found. The Macalester administration and faculty make this college a great place.

The Common Platform’s goals are vague and impractical. As for its unflinching support of need-blind admissions, the college should not take on policy projects if it cannot afford them, no matter how noble they may be.

Supporters of the Common Platform should consider the enormous amount of aid and the wonderful education Macalester provides before making the MCSG legislative body, which exists to allocate money to student organizations, their soapbox for complaints about the administration.

Andrew Riely ’05
 

To the Editor:

100% need-blind admissions has never existed at Mac. Transfer and international students, who make up 20% of the student body, are currently evaluated with their financial condition in mind. Macalester cannot continue to spend as it does and remain financially solvent. The college will be in serious financial difficulty if it doesn't start changing some habits now. The only group at Macalester that is not footing its part of the bill is students (and arguably alumni). The claim by the Common Platform (CP) that Macalester isn't in financial trouble is wholly false.

From my experience last year on the Legislative Body (LB), I can say with a high degree of certainty that the strongest voices in the CP are for social and environmental concerns at all costs—which is obviously detrimental to the college. With the CP, there is no room for weighing the costs and benefits of social and environmental action. No room for balance. That isn't my voice and I'm fairly certain it isn't the voice of the vast majority on campus. But student government tends to attract those with radical agendas, and here is one behind a very thin veil.

The CP is not good for the college: it doesn't deal with the financial difficulties of Macalester, it fails to look for balance in a climate which requires it, and it is out of touch with the challenges Macalester faces. Indeed, committees now exist for all the CP’s concerns within the LB (with the exception of institutional responsibility). Dialogue is what gets the job done. Dialogue is what will be lacking in the LB this year.

Joseph Schultz ’06
 

Need-Blind Admissions Policy Integral to Mac

To the Editor:

We are dismayed to learn of President Rosenberg's consideration of abandoning the need-blind admissions policy.

As not only alumni of color, but as conscientious students, we know first hand the value of multiculturalism and diversity. We do not need any quantitative analyses to explain the correlation between race, income and financial aid packages. As students who came from middle and working class households, we could not have afforded Macalester if not for the generous grants and loans that compose need-blind admissions. We cannot afford to sacrifice the tenets of multiculturalism and diversity that Macalester stakes its reputation on—tenets that we all fought for as students—for perceived financial considerations and arbitrary rankings.

We understand that many academic institutions are currently under financial restrictions. However, we believe the advantages of need-blind admissions far outweigh any perceived financial strain on the college. While the financing of higher education has shifted tremendously in recent years, we call upon the President and Board of Trustees to figure out some means of reconciling the finances and the commitment to underserved communities. If Brown University and the University of Michigan have recently decided to adhere to need-blind policies, it is possible for Macalester to stick with need-blind standards.

There is entirely too much at stake in the future of our academy and world to counter the equality that is garnered by a need-blind admissions process in higher education. I hope that the Macalester community will seriously discuss this issue, all of its future ramifications on the diversity of the Macalester community, and the effect that it could have on impressions of Macalester.

If need-blind policies are lost, then Macalester is failing past recipients of need-blind aid and the President is failing Macalester.

Sincerely,
Kara von Blasingame '02
Jesse Vega Frey '00
Terri-Ann Thompson '02
Carrie Stark '01
Coecillia Song '02
Cleo Rolle '00
Matt Reid '01
Shana Redmond '02
Surya Pierce '00
Kwame Phillips '01
Dominic Pearson '04
Sele Nadel-Hayes '02
Jennifer Jordan '01
Chad Jones '00
Juan Figueroa '77
Catherine Ming T'ien Duffly '00
Kendell Coker '99
Cerissa Chaney '02
andre carrington '03
Natasha Burrowes '00
Justin Brandon '00
Emi Baldoni '02
 

To the Editor:

I had wildly contradictory reactions to President Brian Rosenberg’s first editorial. On the one hand, I felt proud to work at a school with a track record of offering such substantial financial aid. On the other hand, I was dismayed by his posing of the issue as an “either/or” choice between maintaining our levels of financial aid (for this is really the issue, not “need-blind” per se) or providing resources for the college’s other real needs (new fine arts complex, new athletic facilities, salaries and benefits for faculty and staff, etc.)

I have taught at Macalester since 1982 and I have had the distinctive pleasure of seeing many of my students, our students, come from non-traditional backgrounds, succeed here, use their imaginations here, find themselves here, get a sense of what’s possible in the world here and go on to make an impact on that world. Our student body’s diversity—national, economic, racial and ethnic—has enriched our learning environment for all students who come here. It seems to me impossible to quantify, to place a price tag, on that critical factor in a Macalester education.

I have always been pleased to contribute to this process in many ways, but President Rosenberg’s first article helped me understand how our generous financial aid practices have contributed to it. What a wonderful “claim to fame” this could be! Here is where we should be focusing our trumpet fanfare as we seek to “define” ourselves, to mark out our territory, to promote ourselves. Here is where we stand above and beyond those “peer” institutions to which we so often compare ourselves.

Sadly, President Rosenberg and other advocates of leaving behind our “need-blind” tradition do not see this as an appropriate marker for Macalester. Instead, they see it as a problem, as a liability, as an albatross around our financial necks. Their approach suggests that deep differences of values and education divide us. It is vital that our discussion of these issues this year reach the level of values and educational philosophies, the politics of access to higher education and that we not become mired in economic statistics.

I read President Rosenberg’s first article upon my return from presenting an address to the annual Delegate Assembly of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, a union of more than 10,000 public employees. They have found that their rights to collective bargaining have been hamstrung by a state government that manipulates budgets so that there is “no money” in the account from which they might receive salary increases and stable health insurance benefits. Politicians, media pundits, radio talk show hosts, and their ilk have built their careers on insisting that there be no tax increases (and therefore, no increased revenues for public programs or public employees’ compensation). They poison our political discourse by scapegoating and bashing the women and men who drive our buses, teach our children, repair our roads, and maintain our parks. Bargainers on the management side of the table simply shake their heads, hold forward their empty palms, and say, “Well, the Legislature hasn’t allocated any more funds for salaries and benefits. Sorry...”

Of course, the Legislature has chosen where to put its resources and where not to put its resources. Likewise, it seems to me, Macalester can decide where to put its resources.

President Rosenberg’s second article raised additional alarm bells for me. If, as he argues, nothing fundamental will change if we leave “need-blind” admissions behind, then what is the point of making such a controversial, divisive, and symbolic change? It seems obvious to me that the real point here is to shift resources from financial aid to other parts of the college. Will such a redirection of resources have no fundamental consequences? Hardly!

The financial aid pot will be raided in order to redistribute college resources to other pots. In collective bargaining, once management has defined “labor costs” as the only variable, while excluding management compensation, stock dividends, expenditures on various projects, and other business ventures from scrutiny, everyone involved knows that the workers’ pockets will be picked. The parallels to the ways that President Rosenberg has framed the Macalester financial aid situation are chilling.

Where my friends the public employees are concerned, the main answer must lie in increasing revenues which might well necessitate raising taxes. Not pleasant for all, perhaps, but responsible, mature, and humane. Here at Macalester, our first concern must be to increase our total resources. We need an aggressive program to raise funds for the college (a central part of President Rosenberg’s job responsibilities) altogether. And, might not our track record of generous financial aid, with its outcome of producing active citizens who have enriched our society and communities, be a “selling point” for such a fund-raising campaign? I would be the first to volunteer to help raise those funds and to make a personal contribution.

I am proud not only of our history, but of those students and alumni who are speaking out on this issue. Together we can continue to make Macalester a school with which we are proud to be associated.

Peter Rachleff

Professor of History