This year, commencement will be like television. You will watch it for free, but it will come with a rather lengthy commercial break known as the Omidyar family.
President Bacow deserves some credit for doing his job well, which is largely fundraising. Omidyar, worth billions, is likely to be in a particularly gift-giving mood come he and his wife's moment in the sesquicentennial sun. And, as we all know, Tufts could really use a hefty birthday check.
With this in mind, I suppressed my initial response to the Omidyar announcement _ "Boring! We've heard that clich?©d speech three times already!" _ in deference to Bacow's shrewdness. But then I started thinking about what this, one of the first major initiatives upon which our new president has openly taken complete responsibility, might actually signify. A commencement speaker is supposed to represent, as the president said in his e-mail, "ideals [in which] we believe very strongly."
What are those ideals? Certainly we believe in large-scale donations to Tufts. But we also, Bacow is saying, believe in entrepreneurship and shrewd business-dealings (as long as a charity foundation is involved). We believe in them so much, in fact, that we lose sight of what should be our ideal: higher learning.
Omidyar is an impressive businessman and a generous philanthropist. But he is not an academic and his speeches have no substance. We will not be listening to his ideas; we will be listening to his wallet that happens to be laced in donations. The Omidyar selection perfectly represents a major priority shift in the new presidential agenda. Bacow is more interested in churning out successful businesspeople who will donate to Tufts than in educating thinkers who will seriously engage in academic issues.
The president, in all of his rhetoric about the out-of-the-classroom experience, fails to appropriately value the in-the-classroom experience. Despite the diversity for which Tufts strives so earnestly, we students have had one thing in common: an academic education. But, in a move that is typical of the big-money agenda for which he was hired, Bacow is replacing the common ideal of learning for one of dollar signs.
It is understandably important to Bacow that he create a corporate-friendly atmosphere and increase the endowment. But Omidyar's selection shows that when the president's agenda comes into direct conflict with academic integrity, he will sell out.
So I would ask President Bacow why he has no reservations about bowing to big business in such a pronounced setting. I am sure the trustees want Tufts to go up in the US News rankings and raise enough money to compete with the big gun universities. And we could certainly have a better chance to solve a wide variety of undergraduate life concerns that will be made clear in his new taskforce.
But this is not worth the academic price he is apparently willing to pay. If academics are not prioritized, especially in something as important as commencement, there is every reason to believe that Bacow is not planning to give them the proper value. The president should shift his top priority to what Tufts does best. Strong academics are not a byproduct of undergraduate life; they are the reason we are here. Academics quite obviously remain the most impressive and (by far) the most rewarding element of our education.
This year, Tufts should be honoring the academic tradition on which it was founded, and on which we base our ideals. We seniors should be able to celebrate a four-year intellectual journey by hearing a distinguished intellectual. Instead we will be watching an eBay commercial, thanks to our new president.
Scott Trudell is a Senior majoring in English.
