Proud to be an embarrassment

Owen Hill, a junior at Hunter College in New York City and an activist against budget cuts and tuition hikes, explains why he isn't well-liked by the college president.


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MY COLLEGE president thinks I'm an embarrassment to Hunter. I know this because she told me.

It happened two weeks ago when I was invited to attend an event related to Hunter College, but taking place off campus. President Jennifer Raab gave an arrogant introduction to a keynote speaker, during which she claimed that since its founding, Hunter (and by implication its administration) had maintained "an unwavering commitment to keeping Hunter accessible to everyone...despite class, race or gender..."

...My memory of what I said next is pretty fuzzy. I know I pressed on, and I imagine it was something along the lines of "That's still cutting the Children's Learning Center." But to be honest, this recollection is completely overpowered by the memory of Raab's response. For at this point, Raab, clearly not accustomed to having her hypocrisy called out, was absolutely livid, her face was red, and she was nearly shouting at me. "I hope you know that you're an embarrassment to this college."

"...You're an embarrassment to this college," she said, "and you're an embarrassment to your fellow Hunter students, because you don't have your facts straight. You do this every time I see you, and you don't have your facts straight, and it's totally inappropriate..."

It wasn't just that I had been berated before a sizable crowd by the New York City's 41st most powerful woman (according to the New York Daily News)...What shocked me was how rapidly things had escalated and how little I had done to escalate them. I assumed I'd be brushed aside with relative ease and tact...

But after thinking about our encounter for a bit, her reaction started to make sense. It's now clear to me that Raab, besides being someone with wealth and power, is also someone who is totally unaccustomed to having to answer to an informed and defiant student body, and that's why I was able to frazzle and embarrass her so easily. That's why she considers me an embarrassment to her college as a whole.

It's not because I don't have my facts straight. It's because I have my facts straight--and I know how to use them.

IF THAT'S what it means to be an embarrassment to Hunter College, then I think this school needs more embarrassments. It's high time Gov. David Paterson, the legislature in Albany and CUNY's complacent administration feel the palpable anger of our campus, wherever they are. If we can't continue our lives unhassled, unassaulted by the daily attacks of this crisis, then neither should they.

They need to know we're watching them, and that we are not happy with what they're doing. In this respect, individual confrontations are important, and it's why I make a point of confronting Raab and other top administrators about the issues that are directly affecting the quality of my life whenever I see them. After all, shouldn't our administration be accessible and accountable to its student body?

But individual confrontations are not enough to fundamentally change the state of affairs at CUNY and in the state as a whole. For that, we need social movements...

If numbers provide us with safety, they also provide the second crucial reason we need to build mass social movements: efficacy.

Sure, one person can vent repeatedly at President Raab, can embarrass her, maybe even make her slip up. But it takes hundreds of people targeting the administration at every opportunity to force them to fundamentally alter their plans. To accomplish this, we need a living movement: networks of students, professors and faculty who are confident and politically sharp. Social movements are training grounds, where unengaged and demoralized students and workers become engaged and confident.

I was always an able public speaker, but I only found something worthwhile to say after participation in movements--after having my own understanding of how the world worked get constantly challenged and enlarged by those engaged in struggle around me. I also saw for myself why what I was fighting for was fundamentally right when I saw hundreds of people join me in protest and discussion.

So consider this essay a call to action. We all need to start building movements to social movements that train a whole new generation of embarrassments to Jennifer Raab. In the wake of March 4, I am optimistic about our ability to do so.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/10/proud-to-be-an-embarrassment

A friend of mine was going to apply to be Pres. of an university in the Midwest. She and I decided she should practice her interviw, sort of an oral essay on how she would be good as the new University president.

She got all the way through her speech, and I realized that not once had she mentioned students. There was simply no where in all the long lists she had been told to focus on, for her to place any focus at all on students.

She had to be concerned with things like the budget, fund raising, cost containment, physical inventories, plant maintenance etc. Especially fund raising.

I pointed out her omission of students and she added in a section on students.

But in the end, the post went to another woman, and nowhere in that woman's speech did she use the "S" word!

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receiving it in kind.

There is no language that suggests spite, hurt feelings or that sense of betrayal the whiny often express: Why is this happening to meeeeeee?

He knows why it's happening. His "shock" (where the exchange became abnormal) was at the swift and somewhat over the top reaction. I've been there. You are engaging in a, perhaps contentious but still civil, discussion and suddenly the ground shifts and it's taken to a level that was both unexpected and unintended.

In this essay, he's merely trying to critically deconstruct why the reaction was so strong. And how to utilize the information to it's best advantage.

Clear thinking, Good strategy.