Tag Archives: identity crisis

Identity Crisis Newsletter Interest Meeting

IdentityCrisis

From Sasha Stahl ’17:

It feels really good when people say something you can relate to or connect with. People at Wesleyan have varied, unique identities that cover a breadth of experiences, opinions, and attitudes that can both allow us to understand where our peers are coming from or conversely, not quite relate to one another.

To that end, what I want to CREATE is a brief, bimonthly NEWSLETTER that allows people to relate to one another, through a sharing of personal anecdotes, a section highlighting a Wesleyan student of the week who has focused on their identity in some way, and an “overheard this week” section, among others. Simultaneously I want people to feel EMPOWERED and COMFORTED by the knowledge that people on campus experience similar feelings, frustrations, and feats as they do. I want this newsletter to help people on campus realize the different identities and experiences that make up this campus, while also creating a dialogue to speak about these differences.

The Myth of the Little Three: Are College Rankings Killing Wesleyan’s Culture?

BADGE!

Do you ever get the feeling Wesleyan is having a little bit of an identity crisis?

There’s a good chance that my ‘ideal’ Wesleyan doesn’t look exactly the same as yours; our concerns and tastes are different, as are our experiences here. But it is likely that the things you love most about Wesleyan are unique to it, are not quantifiable, and are not things that are in step with success as defined by any rankings algorithm. I’m serious about Wesleyan dropping out of college rankings like US News. Reed College president Colin Diver explains in a 2005 Atlantic article that “one-size-fits-all ranking schemes undermine the institutional diversity that characterizes American higher education…(as) The urge to improve one’s ranking creates an irresistible pressure toward homogeneity, and schools that… strive to be different are almost inevitably penalized.” In my opinion, Wesleyan students have been struggling against that subtle pressure in different ways for years now.