Obies with trustfunds, heed my call and try to do some good
Faculty can guide students by rejecting the SMB&D charter
Passing Reflections on 3 years of Oberlin's identity politics
Final remarks to the Review staff and the oberlin community
Ever since I got my brochure from Oberlin College and read that famous change the world cover, I was hooked. Oberlin was for me. All my life I had been waiting for this place to come into my life. I thought that I had found the answer. Here is where I will learn how to do what I had always wanted to do. Forget engineering, forget computers, I'm going to learn how to change the world, to make a difference.
The wealth gap is out of control. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population now owns 40% of all private wealth, which is more than that of the bottom 92 percent of the population combined. U.S. CEO's make more than 320 times that of the average U.S. worker's income. In Germany that ratio is only 21 times and in Japan only 16 times. The CEO of Traveler's insurance company is the highest paid executive in the world grossing some $150 million a year. Between 1990 and 1995 corporate profits were up 50 percent while worker layoffs were up 39 percent and worker pay went down 1 percent. These numbers are much larger today. Consider this model of private wealth: Take ten chairs and put them in a row, and one person sitting on each chair. Each person represents 10% of the population. This is the ideal model. In today's reality, one person takes up seven chairs, another gets one of the chairs, and the other eight people have to sit on only two chairs. Now the eight people on the two chairs are not very comfortable. They have to sit on each other's laps if they can fit at all. As these people look around they see others sitting on their lap and then complain about them instead of the one person with all the chairs. The wealthy keep themselves well hidden as the cause of this congestion in the bottom ranks. So the factory worker complains about his neighbor who took his job, or the middle class family blames the problem on welfare mothers.
I'm sure most of you have heard these statistics before. The question is what does a person do, if anything at all. At Oberlin, we've been exposed to all kinds of causes, social injustices, and attempts at activism. We know that the world has problems, and we want to do something about it. When I graduated in December though, I left the place with an empty feeling that I still didn't know how I was going to "Change the World." Many people don't know exactly what they're going to do after they graduate. Many of you will go on to teach, do social work, volunteer at a non-profit, intern for a magazine or publisher, or work on an organic farm. Others will go to grad school to study law, medicine, or music. Still others will have no clue what they're going to do and end up back home until they can figure something out. Whatever it is you do, I challenge you to seek out the best possible way for you to enact social change.
A few weekends ago, I attended a conference for young people with wealth, especially those interested in social change. It was the first of its kind-a conference on philanthropy and social change. You see, in the next three decades, the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history will occur. The big CEO's, investors, and "old money" holders will soon be giving all their money to the next generation. I am one of those people. Many of you are also, even though you may not know it yet, or may deny it. The amazing opportunity for our generation is to put that money where it should be-into the betterment of society-not the capitalist economy. There is now a new wave of philanthropy. Philanthropy by people in their 20's, whose viewpoints tend to be more geared towards social change. Many of you have parents who paid for your entire education at Oberlin. To you, I challenge you to confront your parents about their wealth. Ask them what they plan on doing with their money. Do you have a trust fund? Do they have a foundation? How much do they give away now and to what causes? Do they plan to give away money in the future? Become an active part in the use of that money and use it for the betterment of society.
You don't have to be a teacher or volunteer worker to make a difference. You can also be a doctor or a lawyer or an investment banker. Make shitloads of money, but live on $40,000 a year and give the rest away. Or become a social entrepreneur. Start a business that directly affects social change-a business that is socially productive, but actually turns a profit so that it can fund itself. An organic farm collective for instance...or a business that invests money in inner city school dropouts who want to start their own businesses. Hell, look at Ben & Jerry's. Use this capitalist system, cause it isn't going to go away any time soon. Exploit it like it has exploited others.
Become an active philanthropist. Believe it or not, there are grad schools in philanthropy. I met a woman named Tracy Gary at this conference who started the women's building in San Francisco, and helped start 100 women's foundations all over the country in the past 20 years. Every year since then, she's given away much of her own inherited wealth, but also has raised between $3 - 5 million a year in the process. The money is out there folks-whether you have it personally or not. Find it, and use it...not for yourself, but for the good of others who just don't have the resources they need to get by. Are you in the closet about your money? I haven't accepted my wealth in the past. But now I've realized what money can actually do. Come out of your philanthropic closet and give me a call.
For more information about issues of personal wealth, social entrepreneurship, or philanthropy, please contact me adam.stenftenagel@oberlin.edu..
At the next meeting of the General Faculty (presumably September 1998) its Student Life Committee (SLC) will recommend that the faculty charter the Sadism, Masochism, Bondage and Domination (SMB&D) student organization. Some doubt that the faculty should have anything to do with chartering student organizations. (The SLC may soon recommend procedural changes which will remove the faculty from the chartering process altogether.) Nevertheless, present faculty legislation requires student organizations to be chartered by the faculty and, until procedures are changed, the faculty should take this business seriously.
Oberlin College is quite proud of its academic programs. For years, the faculty has taken a hands-off approach with regard to life outside the classroom, a natural reaction to the rigidity of the in loco parentis policies of the 50's. But a college education is much more than what takes place inside the classroom - it is about young men and women growing into adulthood in an environment established to promote this process. While the faculty has focused its attention on the curriculum our US News and World Report ranking has dropped below 20, our admit rate has grown to 70 percent, the female-to-male ratio exceeds 3-to-2, the retention rate for African American students approaches 50 percent, our intercollegiate and intramural athletic programs have floundered, the Drag Ball has become the dominant social event of the year, and we have lost any sense of community.
I believe that the faculty must involve itself in life outside the classroom and it should begin by taking seriously our responsibility in chartering clubs. I do not believe that Oberlin College should endorse an SMB&D club. I believe that SMB&D behavior does not positively contribute to the health of our community. I am not advocating that the College stop students from engaging in legal activity. But we can and should exercise judgment by refusing to endorse and encourage deviant behavior. In chartering a student organization the faculty authorizes it to receive Student Finance Committee funds (used, among other things, for bringing in speakers), advertise at College-sponsored club fares (including "All Roads" week), and use an Oberlin College web home page to spread their views over the internet. I would similarly deny a charter to the Klu Klux Klan or a Nazi group. Again, I am not advocating that the College actively stop students from engaging in legal activity - I am saying it should not actively aid students in activities which go against our community values.
Of course, this begs the question, does the Oberlin College community hold any values in common and, if so, what are they? And what is the OC community anyway - trustees, alumni, faculty, students, parents? Are there any values shared by all members of all these groups? Or should we settle for values that are shared by a large majority?
In the absence of any faculty effort to articulate Oberlin values the void has been filled by those who speak the loudest, just as in economics the unregulated free market is dominated by the most aggressive entrepreneurs. The"in your face" crowd has successfully defined the values of Oberlin College in the market place. Relatively few Ohio students, few athletes, and few evangelical Christians choose to attend Oberlin. We continually fail to reach our stated goal to annually enroll 100 black students. Yet as an institution we say that we are interested in athletics at Oberlin. We say we seek diversity, not only of race and culture, but of ideas. How long will we fail to understand the connection between our disparate goals? The chartering of an SMB&D club will give parents of these "scarce students" one more reason to send their children elsewhere.
This last fall I attended a "Unity" dinner for the Oberlin College Christian community, a dinner attended by a half-dozen faculty, some town folk, and about 100 students. I was stunned to observe that roughly half of the students in attendance were black, though black students account for less than 10 percent of the OC student population. How does an SMB&D affect the atmosphere for these students? More specifically, will the College's endorsement of this activity (through the chartering process) make parents of these students wish to send their children here? How will the endorsement of this club help or hurt when the basketball coach sits down with the parents of a perspective player and tries to convince them that Oberlin is the place for their child? And that evangelical Christian music education student being recruited for the Conservatory - will this help recruit her? At Oberlin we conduct studies, we establish minority programs, we hire new athletic directors, but these solutions fail to get at the heart of the problem. We have a College atmosphere that is not welcoming to students from vast cross-sections of American society.
To those who rejoice in the success in keeping the "wrong people" away from Oberlin, I ask this. If you are able to drive away all the "narrow-minded" folks who don't buy into your agenda, what will you be left with? Will you have an institution with diversity? Will you have a 95 percent admit rate because there is a clear banner flying over the College - children of traditional families need not apply? Will the institution have any more national relevance than Oral Roberts University - a conservative, fundamentalist, Christian institution?
Students are looking for boundaries. Look at events that have taken place at Oberlin College during the last two years. In the fall of 1996 there was the Tribe-8 concert (Review, November 1, 1996 and November 22, 1996). A year ago a student fetish party (presumably associated with the SMB&D group) involved the whipping of a naked man tied to a "cross" (Review, May 4, 1997). Last May, a student composer concert performance involved performers engaged in oral sex (Review, May 23, 1997). And look at the 1998 edition of the Hi-O-Hi. Is this the kind of year book that all students will be proud of? If the SMB&D charter is approved, what will be next, a pedophilia club (informational only, of course)?
It is time for the Oberlin faculty to exercise some guidance in student life at Oberlin. I ask my faculty colleagues to reject the SMB&D charter.
I've spent the last semester of my Oberlin life thinking about all the things I've accomplished and all the things I haven't. I can count the first list on my fingers, but the second one frightens me with its endlessness.
I've spent the last semester of my time at Oberlin thinking back on the things I've learnt from being here, and all the changes that I can account for over this three-year period. I've thought about all the people I've met, all the places I've grown to love, the experiences I've dwelled in, and then, of course, of all the things I've learnt to reject.
I've thought about the kind of politics we grow accustomed to at Oberlin, and the constant need to identify, not as individuals, but as members of certain communities. I came to Oberlin conscious of all my 'properties', determined to allow those elements to constitute my very being, so much so that that particularized identity was all I had. I want to be very careful here not to mention what that identity was because in the years that have passed, I have come to reject the notion of identity and feel that I can and should be able to belong anywhere.
But much as I wonder why I didn't learn that lesson before, I take a look at Oberlin and realize why. Oberlin, as an institution with a 'liberal' reputation also harbored such feelings and I was encouraged to continue in the realm of communitarian association. In the eyes of others around me, the properties that identified me defined my entire being. I see that around me everywhere in Oberlin. We're so caught up with ideologies and academic privileges that we abuse them in our search for a 'safe space'. So then all we are is that particular identification with which we ally ourselves - a feminist, a Jewish person, an African-American, an Asian-American. The list goes on forever because after a certain point we begin creating ridiculous identities simply to fulfill the need for identifying with something.
Politics at Oberlin are ever-engaging. But they're exclusive and separatist and promise to create more divisions among us then, ironically, the ones we brought with us to Oberlin. And isn't it funny that we end up stereotyping other groups because our focus becomes so deeply concentrated on our particularized 'group'. Isn't it funny that our desire to achieve understanding among fellow beings is counteracted by communitarian ideologies that we fully acknowledge and endorse?
And what of liberalism, when to utter the word 'republican' is slanderous? And we spend all of our last few weeks every year worrying about the Arch and Oberlin's missionary past, and we spend endless hours condemning organizations like the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association when really there's so much more to be done then to condemn and complain. We focus so much on the past that we become blind to the present, and right here, right now, in the present, we have forgotten how to communicate with one another, blindly following the trends of our time. The Arch issue will inevitably come up again this year as commencement comes up. I want desperately not to have to walk 'through' or 'around' the Arch because I'm not interested in making a statement either way.
Don't get me wrong. I've loved being at Oberlin, but I feel much more appreciative of the things I've learnt after pulling away from the politics of identity and coming to terms with a more human existence.
I've thought of all the wonderful people I've grown to love and cherish here, and my connectedness to Oberlin and its surrounding localities. But as I ready myself for departure, I don't want to simply romanticize this growing experience. There's more to Oberlin than meets the eye; I've spent most of this year thinking about those other things.
And I'm still thinking.
Ah, The Oberlin Review. I'm about to graduate, and I feel as though it's my duty to write this letter to let you, the staff of the Review (as well as the Oberlin community) know what I think. Yeah, so maybe I'm being arrogant in assuming that people will want to listen to my observations. I've been called arrrogant before. I've been called worse than that (usually by people who have had class with me). I really don't care. So here goes...
The Commentary section is the best: It has been this way for four years. While I have found the editorials to be interesting, what makes the commentary section so good is the students who choose to write letters. These are sometimes boring, sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant, but almost always worth reading. And the staff at the Review deserves props for coming up with snappy headlines to grab the reader's attention.
The club sports articles kick ass: I like the Sports section, but the most interesting articles to read, year in and year out, are the accounts of the men's ultimate and the women's rugby teams. Why? Because members of the teams write them, and instead of trying to sound like professional sportswriters (as the Review staffers tend to do) they just give the reader a description of how the tournament went. In addition, these two teams usually include fun turns of phrase and try to mention as many team members as possible in their articles, which makes them more interesting.
Toupydoops is well drawn, but Life on the Front is funnier: I think it's great that the Review has two cartoons, and I hope that with Justin Page graduating, someone comes up with another cartoon to balance Kevin McShane's strip. While Toupydoops constantly amazed me with its great artwork, jokes about pornos and cattle prods got a bit redundant at times (though May 5's strip was a gem). Life on the Front was a great counterpoint to Toupydoops because it included little funny bits throughout the strip despite the fact that it was nigh impossible to read sometimes.
The News section is boring: Sorry. It is. However, it does keep the student body informed with what's going on in Nancy's office, in the GF meetings, and at the Student Senate. Not everything can be flashy or funny, and I think it's OK for the news section to be boring but informative.
The Security Notebook and Quote of the Week never disappoint: These two sections are always worth looking at. The quantitative corner was a good new addition, as was the "perspectives" page. These little blurbs are good, but too many of them might make the Review look like USA TODAY. Be careful that you don't go overboard with the pie charts.
The Arts section is better than it used to be: I know people are constantly blasting the arts section because it doesn't mention every event on campus. But it can't hope to; there's too much art going on. What is good about the Arts section is that it now gives honest reviews of the shows it covers. I remember when every article in the Arts section was a blow job for the performers because the Review was afraid to say anything bad about them. This year, there have been frank and honest appraisals of performances, which has been a refreshing change.
You can learn a lot from Mr. Dawson: In the Review a few weeks ago, you quoted Dawson as suggesting that you do an April Fool's Day issue. I think that is a great idea. Imagine writing a fake review of some art installation that took place in the A-level bathroom. Or a bogus article about how the women's softball team got into a bench-clearing brawl with the Fighting Quakers from Consensus University. An April Fool's issue would show that the Review can make fun of itself, which would be a good thing.
Don't diss the Review: It REALLY PISSES ME OFF when people say that the Review is bad. I don't think that I could want more from a student paper than the Review gives. It's totally student-run, and those students work damn hard EVERY WEEK to put out the lengthy issues that you, dear reader, peruse over dinner on Friday night. If you think the Review could be better, get your ass down to Burton and fix it. But don't sit around and suck down another cigarette and say that the Review sucks because it's cool to do so. If people continue to loudly voice their negative opinions of the Review, SFC might begin to cut its budget, rationalizing that since everyone doesn't like it anyway, it won't matter if it has to cut some sections. That would REALLY SUCK.
I was looking around my house the other day, and I found a copy of that survey that the Review published a few weeks ago. I had filled it out, but I never got around to turning it in. When I found out that nobody had turned it in, I felt really bad because that said to me that everyone on campus takes the Review for granted. This level of apathy is inexcusable even for Oberlin students. Rather than turning in the survey late, I decided to write this letter. I just wanted to say, for the record, that I am very glad that the Review has been here during my college career. Thank you, Review staff, for publishing such a fine campus newspaper.
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.<