Gianna Hayes
Chief News Editor
There’s no dearth of adjectives or emotions I could use to attempt to encapsulate my time at Wooster. I have loved it here. I can’t imagine who I would be if I went anywhere else. I really do think that this education is priceless, but I also think that everyone should have access to it — which is why it saddens me to see the rising cost of tuition, new course overload fees and the discontinuation of scholarships to support marginalized students (the Posse and Allen scholars, in particular).
Anne McCall, Mark Goodman, David Jones or any other administrator who may be reading this, please know that it is not lost on me that the College is in a budget crisis. We students feel it in our lived, everyday experience. I am not asking the administration to sugarcoat the finances of the College, nor am I saying that cuts are not to be expected.
This might shock you, but I – a student journalist and politically active individual – read the news. I am familiar with the Trump administration’s slander for the liberal arts and the value of education as a whole, so it comes as no shock to me that there is a need for adaptations in the field of higher education.
In the midst of all this economic and political strife that looms so tangibly at this institution, I am touched by the immeasurable generosity of the faculty and staff here at the College. (Some administrators, even!) So many people have pointed this out before me, but faculty and staff are overworked and underappreciated and still go to great lengths to show up for their students in a variety of settings. They understand the value of education – the act of teaching not as a business model, but as a vocation.
What I wish to critique is the unwillingness of President McCall to take a pay cut, formally disclose what her husband makes as a ‘host’ for the College and to speak frankly about political situations such as the genocide in Gaza. I understand that the field of higher education is, at the moment, tenuous. But was it not tenuous when the sixth president of the College, Charles F. Wishart, supported the teaching of evolution in the 1920s? Was it not tenuous when Mark Goodman ’90, current chair of the board of trustees, participated in the Galpin takeover in 1989? I’d like to demand: where has the spine gone? McCall and Goodman continue to condescend to students, providing non-answers and speaking of the politics of higher education as if none of us could understand legal implications.
We don’t want investments in Walmart or Lyft, we don’t particularly care about graduate programs or closing Beall Avenue off to the rest of the city. We want investments in our own community. That does not mean upgrading dorms. This is college, I think everyone does (or at least should) expect that dorms suck. It means communicating, standing in solidarity (by taking a pay cut) and not having board of trustees meetings at Florida resorts.
You cannot corporatize this college. We are a community, not a company. To assert that we are a business first is to abandon the integrity of education for education’s sake.
In closing, I would like to remark that despite disagreements I have with leadership at this institution, I love Wooster (the school and the city!) dearly, and I will be sad to leave this beautiful place marked with lovely memories. I intend to give back when I am financially able to because, again, I believe this education should be accessible to all. Pro-tip for my fellow alums/soon-to-be alums: donate to specific departments so you can feel more confident that your hard-earned money goes to actual intellectual pursuits and not towards the president’s salary or board meetings at Florida resorts!
Thanks to all my friends, all the orgs, all the faculty and staff who have made Wooster unforgettable. I will miss my time as a student journalist, and it has been one of my deepest honors to serve the community as a news editor for the Voice for the last four years. Peace!
