Last week, Business Week printed an article discussing President Marx's mission to bring more socioeconomic diversity to Amherst. The article quoted President Marx as saying, "I'm not interested in being a custodian over a privileged place." In all of his speeches so far, President Marx has remained true to this ideal. He has constantly challenged Amherst students to be more socially responsible. I agree with all of President Marx's exhortations about being more involved in community service and engaging in the world outside our Amherst bubble. However, I have some questions regarding his new idea of seeking out low-income students.
While I agree in theory with President Marx's bold vision for Amherst, I have doubts about the actual implementation of the plan. There are two ways to achieve President Marx's goal of bringing more lower-income students to Amherst: decrease the number of other types of students admitted or increase the total number of students in a class. Choosing the first option would mean sacrificing legacies, athletes or simply outstanding scholars. If President Marx attempted to throw overboard any one of these categories of students, he would meet with incredible resistance from a variety of areas. President Marx has, therefore, chosen the latter plan-meaning he will have to raise a very large sum of money to pay for all the extra students on financial aid. President Marx has done an excellent fundraising job so far, but I'm not sure he will be able to continue at this pace if admitting more low-income students becomes his top priority for Amherst. It seems that alumni would be much more interested in donating money if it was directed toward improvements in the College such as building new facilities or gaining more high profile faculty. Instead of making the College stronger, President Marx's program actually threatens the elite standing of the College.
To achieve his goal of socioeconomic diversity, President Marx conceded that he would admit less qualified students who have the potential to succeed at Amherst. This policy doesn't appear to benefit either the low-income unqualified students or Amherst College. If someone is academically unprepared for the rigors of Amherst, should we be forcing them to struggle through for the sake of diversity? Essentially, we would be giving these students the option of sink or swim. If the students swim, then everyone wins and it becomes a success story. If the students start drowning, though, then where are we? We have damaged the confidence of an individual who might have excelled at a lesser university and taken away a spot at Amherst from a qualified individual. There is some academic support in the form of the Writing Center and the Quantitative Skills Center at the College, but each program has its limits.
Setting aside the damage done to the students, there is a far greater question of the damage done to Amherst College as an institution by bringing in large numbers of unqualified students. If Amherst lowers its admissions standards, it might fall from the ranks of elite colleges which would drive away alumni donations and faculty. Additionally, one of the strongest arguments in favor of diversity is that it brings many different points of view to the classroom. Introducing new points of view, though, doesn't matter if students are unable to properly articulate them.
There is also the danger of neglecting the current students by reaching out to more unqualified ones. Currently, there is a push for more intense writing in first-year seminars since a fair number of students don't possess solid writing skills. Should we really be stretching the limits of our academic support programs or should we concentrate on better integrating these few struggling students?
While there are certainly many negative repercussions to lowering academic standards at Amherst, I don't think there are many positive ones. Legacies bring alumni donations and a sense of continuing tradition to the College. Athletes enrich the social atmosphere and enhance pride in the institution. What do lower-income students contribute to Amherst? While I still think the idea of diversity is a very amorphous creature, I'll submit to the notion that having people from a variety of classes is a worthwhile objective. Nonetheless, I'm not sure whether achieving this goal is worth sacrificing the academic quality of an Amherst education.
All of the above arguments are not intended to completely reject President Marx's proposal. Amherst should absolutely be engaged in recruiting low-income students and bringing diversity to the school. We should ensure that qualified students aren't prohibited from attending Amherst due to the high cost of tuition. I applaud President Marx for setting forth an ambitious agenda, and making his actions ring true to his words. However, in pursuing his agenda, I think he should be reminded that as president of the College, his first obligation should be to Amherst, not to fixing economic inequalities present in the U.S.
Melissa Sidman can be contacted at
mrsidman@amherst.edu