The financial struggles of New England liberal arts colleges have been in the news lately. “Marlboro planning to give campus and endowment to Emerson College” describes the end of 73 years of operation in Southern Vermont. “Can small liberal arts colleges survive the next decade?” (Christian Science Monitor)
A friend who has worked at the highest levels of college governance said that these bastions of righteousness in which white males are blamed for most things are having difficulty recruiting white males. Why does that matter? “Once the men stop attending,” he noted, “then women don’t want to enroll.”
Marlboro has a 56-percent female student population (US News), which is right at the national average (“Why Men Are the New College Minority” (Atlantic)). Hampshire College, whose stress is profiled in the CS Monitor, is at 62 percent female (collegefactual.com).
He brings an intersectional lens grounded in social justice praxis to the classroom and is passionate about racial, gender and LGBTQ justice and issues of representation in film. Brad believes that the Western film canon is essentially a survey of what bell hooks calls “the imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” Any creative work that we do must reckon with this history of oppression, extract from it what serves us, and dismantle and discard what does not.
Hampshire College’s Commitment to Diversity:
At Hampshire diversity encompasses multiple and intersecting identities including but not limited to race, class, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, religious expression, physical and mental abilities, military and veteran status, and political expression.
We aspire to foster an inclusive community of individuals who share a commitment to all forms of anti-oppression, social justice, respectful discourse, and engagement.
It doesn’t sound as though a white male wearing an MAGA hat would be considered welcome (“respectful”) diversity! Thus, these schools are fighting over the handful of young men who are (a) rich enough to pay tuition for a non-vocational degree, (b) sympathetic to the idea that they are perpetrating abuse of women, minorities, etc.
One could argue that a liberal arts college whose male-female ratio is right at the national average of 44-56 should be doing fine. However, consider the female customer. Why should she pay 3-4X the price of a state school if the gender ID ratio is no better (from her point of view) at the expensive liberal arts college?
Related:
- St. John’s College, which might end up being among the last survivors because it offers a teaching system that is not available at the lower-cost state-run schools (“lower cost” to students and families; state-run schools might in the long run actually be higher total cost when we consider public employee pensions, etc.)
The lion kingdom’s college was manely male because all the women married breadwinners by their 3rd year & dropped out. Would blame rising obesity for more of them staying in. There aren’t any women who can run a mile, on the commuter trains.
The sorority girls talk about “ring spring” even today. Find the guy who’s going to provide at daddy’s level (or better), and get married. The pretty ones, that is. The less pretty become the angry feminists who demand equal everything. And the socialists make it their “cause”.
Frisco: I agree, as do all the other incels on my “Female Chads Exist” message board. Right on brother!
I thought it was un woke to call people male or female. Genders are fluid and can and will change!
Me Too!
Genders may be fluid, but the crimes of the reactionary genders against progressive ones are not!
The colleges’ struggles show that educational institutions are now in effect churches. They’d rather close down than betray their beliefs by welcoming white males. In a way, this returns higher education back to when theology was its highest mission, except that the belief system is different. History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme.
You can see a similar phenomenon in Hollywood where making bombs like the recent Terminator movie is preferred to offering old-fashioned (and therefore irreligious) entertainment. It’s true there is a lot of “say-gooding” and hypocrisy but I think these new beliefs are also widely and sincerely held, which is why the damage they cause won’t be survivable.
Noted that Marlboro was founded in 1946 – apparently in response to the boatloads of Federal cash coming to WW2 veterans seeking degrees.
We come to liberal arts colleges to learn and gain a praxis that becomes a life style. Higher education involves plenty of learning and unlearning. While we are not blind to sex, we are not disillusioned to the superstructures that our society needs to do away with.
“unlearning”? You have no idea how authoritarian and unintelligent you people consistently sound. You may think yourself “educated” but in reality you’re living on a very low level of consciousness. I’d pity you if you weren’t such golems for evil.
Mack: unless you spend a lot of time with “ag7”, isn’t it tough to say this much about him/her/zir? Why can’t we be grateful to ag7 for sharing a perspective on how folks who are passionate about liberal arts colleges think?
“golems for evil” . calm down there Mack and go back to your red pill higher level of consciousness.
EvilGolem:
Youre so naive. But that what makes you a good and obedient servant.
You dont have to think or reason. You just have to blindly believe.
And dont you dare to question absolutes like tolerance or inclusiveness. That what nahtzees and other thoughtcriminals do.
GimmeAbreak: can I interest you in my new product idea, it’s a mat with various conclusion written on it. Then you *jump* and where you land is the answer. I call it “Jumping to Conclusions!”
Would you like to invest?
@EvilGolem
Are you majoring in projection?
“At Hampshire diversity encompasses . . . political expression.”
Jokes are supposed to be funny.
The sooner they close thee better for the morons they think they are educating.
They clown themselves and surprise surprise they lose business.
Nothing wrong with seminaries teaching the faith to the next generation of adherents, but in a religion that glorifies non-procreative lifestyles, don’t act all surprised when the next generation is a lot smaller than yours.
If I were to go back and redo my college experience, I would have gone to one of these colleges with >65% women, kept my mouth shut about my libertarian ideas, and just had lots more sex… youth is definitely wasted on the young and stupid!!
You had it easy. I went from a broken home straight into boot camp E1. Wouldn’t do that today though. A male cannot even join the military to get away from bossy feminists these days who gain fast-track EO rank in the rear-with-the-gear where they order men out do the heavy lifting, the fighting and dying.