People don't like to talk about class. I've tried, and I get that. But that doesn't mean we're not aware of it. How often have you dressed up — or dressed down — to place yourself in a certain social class in the eyes of your peers? How often has that effort put you in a different class from the one you identify with? Personally, I've done it more times than I can count.
I dress up to go out, but I dress down in front of my parents to try and wean a bigger birthday check. I wear a collar when I ask out that cute girl, but I wear a white T-shirt to the library so I don't look prude. Class is all around us.
And at Tufts, class divides are starker than ever. We've catered only to a certain kind of middle- to upper-class student who can afford private school tuition for the past 150 years, and we're slowly — finally — fighting our way to accept incoming freshmen need-blind. This will yield tremendous benefits for the Tufts community, and it's just the right thing to do. But what kind of environment are we creating where a sandwich at the Commons is $8.00 or where Matriculation is on Wednesday, a workday when many working-class families cannot watch their children be inducted into the campus community?
We all know ways to make this campus easier for students to manage financially. If you have a specific suggestion or would like to share your perspective on an unforeseen cost on campus that you would like to see eliminated, please e-mail tcusenate@tufts.edu.
Personally, I'm in the middle class. I fall just below the threshold for financial aid, and paying for the costs associated with Tufts beyond tuition — on-campus tickets, eating out, winter hats — is tough. We also can't forget about the middle class.
I'm raising just a few of the class-based conversations we need to have as a campus. I am starting a social advocacy campaign through the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and the Tufts Community Union Senate called The Class Project. We are working to institutionalize a conversation about class and its role on the Tufts campus.
To that end, we will be hosting a week of programming beginning March 30. We will have a series of workshops and panels to discuss the realities of class on campus and public art projects in the campus center to bring these issues into our daily lives. Please visit tuftsclassproject.org regularly for updated information.
We need your help. Please e-mail tuftsclassproject@gmail.com with your personal stories about how class has affected you at Tufts, any kind of art that relates to socioeconomic class or any questions you have about the project. We will keep all submissions anonymous unless requested otherwise. Art and reflections will appear in the campus center, on our Web site and in the campus media.
Class is all around us. Let's start seeing it.
Sincerely,
Duncan Pickard
TCU President
Class of 2010
