An open letter the Emerson College’s Administration
My dad once told me something an old advisor had told him: “To your friends, you give everything you can. To your enemies, you give the law.”
I am transferring from Emerson College this upcoming school year. I would be lying if I said I was shocked over the disregard admin has for its students, especially during the events on April 25, 2024.
Emerson students gave each other everything: they hosted a seder for the Jewish community, they donated food and water, they danced and sang together. When the police arrived, they stood together, arm in arm, and fought for what they believed in.
Emerson administration gave their students the law. They sent emails saying they could do nothing if police came in, saying they were breaking city ordinance by blocking the alley. In the fall, I avoided the alley like the plague while the school hosted events, like the annual carnival. You could barely walk a step without running into someone. While the school offered the loft for one night, they continuously reminded us that we were on our own. We, as students, as protestors, would fight for ourselves when it mattered most.
Emerson’s motto is Expression Necessary to Evolution. The year before I went to Emerson, the new season of Stranger Things had just come out. In it, Nancy wore an Emerson shirt doting its motto. A student used the design and sold shirts to raise money for victims of gun violence. Emerson now sells that design on a shirt for profit.
I decided to transfer for two reasons: the cost and the environment. Emerson is a private institution, so it is no surprise the ticket price is large. I was not happy there and I knew I could be unhappy anywhere in less debt. That idea has not changed. My opinion on the environment has.
While I was considering transferring, I was not happy with my peers. The school is small, making it very easy for cliques to form and rumors to spread. I knew a lot of people and a lot of people knew me, for better or for worse. While I was deciding to transfer, I didn’t attribute this energy to administration. What could they do? I thought, Some people are just caddy. Now I know it was not the students who made the dog-eat-dog environment I was rejecting, it was the administration.
Watching students bond in the camp was beautiful. I participated in an abroad program this semester, so I was not on campus to participate in the protest but I encouraged my friends and reveled in its beauty. There were videos of singing and dancing, zine making, and poetry readings. It was more community than I had ever seen on campus. While horrifying, I was proud of my peers for standing strong as the police came into the camp. They were powerful standing together. They had built a community on shared values. They had built more than the administration had in years.
I still believe my choice to leave Emerson was the right one, but not for the same reasons I submitted my applications. I now believe that the administration never saw me as an individual, someone who could influence the Emerson community or hold beliefs and express themselves. They saw me as a number, a tuition payer, something they could talk down on and say “I told you so” when injustice happens.
Emerson administration, I was more than a profit margin. I am more than a number. I left because of your negligence, and your failure to create a school people want to return to. It is not the students, it has never been the students, who created a university that produces unhappy people. It is you, the administration, who allows greed and corruption to seep its way down to your students, the people you claim to serve. If you want students to feel safe, stop union-busting and arresting students for peacefully protesting inaugurations of presidents who won’t spend an hour with the students. If you want the community to prosper, start paying faculty and staff an appropriate wage for the work they do day in and day out. Start adequately funding clubs and organizations so they can express themselves for your evolution because you clearly have some unnecessary traits you are holding on to. Let those traits go and hold onto your students.
