Vassar "bubble" an inaccurate term

Judy Jarvis Senior Editor

Get over it. There is no Vassar “bubble.” The term has become one of the most dominating catch-phrases at the College, used mostly to express a lack of involvement in the Poughkeepsie community or in national dialogue. But the expression is really a cop-out—an overarching term inactive people use as an excuse. A microcosm is not a bubble.

Vassar students vote, work, and are involved in local, national and global communities. Some of the groups working to garner student activism in every realm are Students for Free Tibet, Habitat for Humanity, Student Activists’ Union, Hunger Action Committee, Vassar Animal Rescue Coalition, Community Works, Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, Vassar Students for Israel, and P.E.A.C.E., an organization dedicated to eradicating racism and prejudice. And I didn’t even touch on the political groups.

The establishment of activist groups is not slowing either. Recently, Matthew Morse ’07 and Philipose Mulugeta ’07 held the first meeting of the Vassar chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Morse said of their goals, “The ACLU club hopes to do work with the community by pursuing some of the issues that concern both residents of the local area and students on campus, such as criminal justice, free speech, and women’s reproductive rights.”

Additionally, community service is embedded into Vassar’s curriculum. In “Issues in Contemporary Education,” a year-long education course, students do about 40 hours of work in Poughkeepsie classrooms. One of the projects last year was a pen-pal program between a predominately black lower-class public school and a predominately white upper-middle class one.

“It’s putting the awareness out there,” said Anne-Marie Wyks ’07, who took the course last year. “You’re helping them learn about race relations as a second grader.”

Vassar students not only teach as part of education classes, they also learn from the community. Also in the education department, students get to see excellent teachers and reading programs in action at Traver Road Primary School.

Africana Studies is another department where students rely on Poughkeepsie as part of the learning experience. For the past 30 years or so, the Africana Studies classes have been going to Greenhaven prison once a week to work with prisoners.

“The inmates that we’re working with will go up for a parole hearing in the next year and a half. As part of this transitional program, they meet with people from the ‘outside’ to exchange information about current events and issues...just for them to have a connection the outside,” explained Eliza Pesuit ’07, one of the students who works with the inmates. Some of the topics they have discussed are domestic violence and the fact that inmates cannot vote. Psychology, Urban Studies, Sociology and other departments use the community as a resource as well.

But this is not to say Vassar students should just give themselves a pat on the back and live statically at the College. I am merely proposing that we eradicate the inaccurate Vassar “bubble” term. The expression is accusatory in a non-constructive way and de-emphasizes all of the hard work that students and faculty have done to fight apathy and lack of involvement.

We are in the “real world” that people like to speak loftily of. We need to recognize that just like any other place in the world, proactivity is individual and more can always be done. So if you’re not doing enough, then make an effort to change it, but until then, speak for yourself.