When I visited The Tufts Daily website yesterday, a headline instantly caught my eye: "Tufts admissions revamps outreach, website" My imagination galloped. Had the university decided to adjust its policy to rein in students from the forgotten stretches of America? Had we chosen to terminate legacy considerations, actively seek students of need and increase our yearly quota of Nebraskans? Was Tufts forgoing another trip to Exeter in order to sprinkle in some visits to meetings of Future Farmers of America and pro-life rallies?
Alas, it was not so. The admissions department has instead conducted a stylistic overhaul of the website and prospective-student magazine, opting once again to address superficial adjustments rather than restructuring the underlying content.
It's a decision that's made a lot these days, and, considering today's attention deficit society, one that makes sense. We watch newspapers revamp their approach, filling their pages with eye-catching design schemes and glitzy decorations as more and more stories fall to AP coverage. Our billboard hits feature auto-tuned, catchy electronic clips with lyrics that seem to be written to teach suburban white kids dance moves and recount hazy nights than to impart a meaningful message. People jealously admire the coolness of gadgets rather than their utility; we let the flurry of Facebook face-lifts make or break our afternoons though they do little to transform our online socializing. Meanwhile, the stuff of real content is dichotomized into manageable blocs. 99 vs 1. White vs. colored. Corporations vs. people. If it can fit into a schematic representation, it can be attacked. If we can't see it, well, we'll save it for another day.
Our recent dialogue about diversity on campus seems to have fallen into this pattern as well. Our discussion zones in on the ostensible categories of hardship and variety — the more noticeable and exotic the oppression, the more it needs to be tackled. There are very compelling and valid reasons to do this. Those whose group identity can be analyzed from across the cafeteria carry a burden that cannot be escaped by fading into the recluse of anonymity or silence. Our traditional concepts of disadvantaged people exist because they're very real, and because they capture enduring trends that continue to plague America.
But the quieter profiles, the ones lacking obvious representation and vocal advocates, tend to get lost in the clamor as the focus almost exclusively falls on the more visible elements of diversity. The subtle stories of working and lower class America slip through the cracks, falling short of the admissions office goals and op-ed pages of campus newspapers. At the same time, we treat certain identities as fully embodying the struggles or the luxuries of the grouping to which they claim. We ignore the complexities that don't fit into our clean categories, and overlook the overlaps that feel contradictory.
A recent study revealed that at the top 146 colleges, a cringe-worthy 3 percent of students are from the bottom economic quartile; 74 percent are from the top fourth. It reinforces what we already know, yet isn't something that's addressed a lot as a social problem in our college community. Socioeconomic class isn't an identity we feel comfortable wearing as our outer layer, and it doesn't have support groups or active advocates. It's easy to slip into the solitude of the majority or identify with a more readily discernible identity. We don't see it, so we forget it's there.
It is paramount to have these tangible representations of varied groups on campus, which add dimensions to our college atmosphere that are worth a fight. But if we pursue a strategy focused exclusively on the appearance of diversity and forget the many layers and veiled elements of our identity, we risk revamping our image without doing enough to alter its content.
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Amanda Johnson is a senior majoring in international relations. She can be reached at Amanda.Johnson@tufts.edu.
