Opinion
Hamilton should “Know Thyself” to sell itself
By Kevin Welsh ’15
April 24, 2015
Like it or not, Hamilton runs a business. Education is certainly a loftier and more valuable product than most, but at the end of the day the College has to sell itself to keep the lights on. This constant selling comes in two parts. This past Monday we saw one half: Accepted Student’s Day. For one day, the College throws its doors open, pitches like there is no tomorrow and hopes the families who visit will buy in to the Hill. The second half exists more broadly and elusively, although it is perhaps more important: alumni giving. In that case, the school drums up nostalgia more than flip-flops to get the checks. They invite you back to reminisce and hope they generated enough fond memories to earn your monetary love later on. While this all sounds very cold and economic, it is also the truth of how the school does, and must, work.
Yet at the heart of this divided sales plan, there is only one Hamilton to sell. The school pitches aspirations to one group and memories to another, but their basis of imagining is this institution we all share. How can they define the College in hopes of reaching many audiences? This question of branding and marketing plagues all business. However, I do not believe the College has figured out an answer to it across all fronts.
The most recent attempts by the College to define itself came from a few angles. First, Hamilton’s institutional goals were revisited and revised (think “aesthetic discernment” and “engaged citizenship,” our new proposed mission statements). These materials lay out the fundamental—almost philosophical—principles of the college. Second, the nuts and bolts of the College shift constantly, such as the First Year Experience, the changes to off-campus housing, our new mascot and the Kennedy Center. These changes manifest themselves in the student’s everyday life and define the campus in a way you can see, feel and photograph for a brochure.
When it comes to the existential tenets of the College, no one has any idea what they mean. Ask any student, ask any professor or ask anyone willing to think like a real person, and you will see immediate and comical rejection of our new philosophies. Things like Aesthetic Discernment and Disciplinary Practice lack specificity, clarity or purpose. If you walked into the Writing Center with those themes, your tutor would spend an hour just trying to figure out what those things meant. Most of our stated values are muddled, lazy yawns to the world of higher education. They cover too many things sparingly and nothing concretely. Ask a Hamilton student what their education has been like, and they will describe it as adventurous, involved, taxing and even shocking at times. None of my friends would cite an emphasis on Ethical, Informed and Engaged Citizenship. Our new academic aims do not even lie because they fail to even make a point.
For a few shiny words, the tenets do manage to veer into comprehensible territory. I admit that Communication and Expression and Intellectual Curiosity speak to my experience at Hamilton as a student. These principles are good places to start defining ourselves meaningfully. And one of our proposed mission statement does hone in on those values, “We expect our students to think critically and creatively. We expect them to understand alternative viewpoints and to embrace difference.” Our old mission statement lacked any such precision, so I am pleased to see that we have, if only nominally, re-imagined ourselves as an institution.
While Hamilton’s existential changes leave much to be desired, I typically find myself understanding and admiring the more tangible changes to the College. As things evolve at the school, many students become upset, but the end result almost always pans out. All Hamilton students, myself included, will struggle to balance the wish for things to never change against the need for a school to change. Hamilton set the scene for most of our first steps into independence and adulthood, so we have developed strong affection and attachment to its every feature. It is difficult to explain exactly why people wanted to save Carnegie two years ago, but the instinct is more primal than logical. Luckily though, I believe our school’s administration manages to overlook our visceral reactions to change and changes the College for the better. Changes like this range from large-scale changes like need-blind admission and a new arts building, down to creating first-year seminars and a senior project.
I think the positive effects of these changes come from a real connection to life at Hamilton. Whether it is Lisa Magnarelli re-inventing the Student Assembly budget so clubs can do more or Nancy Thompson sitting through unending committees to improve every part of student life, our administrators pay attention and react accordingly. Students lack any useful institutional memory, so the long-term planning goes to these lasting figures on campus. They, like anyone working with the students, survey the climate, ask some questions and collaborate endlessly to make things better. At least that is what they try to do, for better or worse.
Looking back at how I experienced Hamilton, and looking forward to how I hope it continues, I think this dissonance of progress boils down to intimacy and end game. Most of the trustees of the College attended Hamilton, but no longer know Hamilton. They appear twice a year for trustee meetings, but I doubt they really ask students many questions or hear about the daily lives of faculty or staff. Unlike their administrator counterparts, they are the distant relatives that only drop in for the holidays. Furthermore, the goals of the trustees may not line up with those of the campus community. The trustees, per their position, care about the business of the college more than anyone else. They strive to improve the College, but their bottom line is the bottom line. Our on-campus community cares about students enjoying their new, albeit temporary, lives, and making each experience and interaction meaningful. Maybe if our trustees and planners formed our philosophy and identity through these intimate interactions instead of abstract, impersonal statements every piece of the College could improve together, creating a more coherent and better version of the College to sell.