Amidst the continuing turmoil on Wall Street and the increasing ugliness of the presidential campaign, it was nice to read – a few days ago, but many days after its publication – this article in the Boston Globe about Barack Obama’s two years at Occidental College, a liberal-arts school in Los Angeles. According to journalist Scott Helman,
it is during the two years Obama spent at Occidental, a small liberal arts school in Los Angeles, that he started on the path that has led to the Democratic presidential nomination. Oxy, as it is affectionately known, nurtured his transformation. He started playing basketball less so he could read and study more. After shying away from activism early in his college career, he joined an antiapartheid campaign. He came to terms with his identity, eventually ditching his nickname, Barry, and embracing Barack. And then, yearning for a bigger stage, he engineered a transfer to Columbia.
Partly it was the sobering state of the world and the nation – the Iran hostage crisis and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the grave concerns over energy and inflation, and the wave of antigovernment conservatism that swept through California in 1978 as the precursor to the Reagan revolution. Partly it was a pivotal professor who helped tease out his potential. And partly it was a desire to assert more control over the arc of his life.
Very interesting stuff. I hope President Obama pays attention to the American liberal-arts colleges, which often do more with less than the big state and private universities that get all the press.
(Postscript: I thought that Obama would have been one of a very few presidential-level politicians to have attended a liberal-arts college, but – according to this Wikipedia list – quite a few have earned degrees at small colleges. By my count, at least fifteen presidents attended at least thirteen liberal-arts schools. The last to do so was Ronald Reagan, who attended Eureka College.)
Best of all, President James Garfield was a classics professor at a small liberal arts college: Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio. Hiram College is also where my father-in-law, John Shaw, spent his career as an English professor. He was the editor of a volume of personal letters between Garfield and his wife Lucretia, Crete and James.
I was *this* close to attending Oxy instead of Mac! Seriously! When I was applying for colleges, Oxy was actually higher on my list than Mac, but after I got my acceptances, I chose Mac instead.
Well, yeah; all the *really* smart people go to Mac.
I’ve forgotten, Rob, to respond to your comment on Garfield. (His bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield) I didn’t know anything about Garfield except that he was assassinated by a disgruntled office-seeker, making Garfield the only president to be killed by the spoils system. I can’t imagine that there are many murdered classics profs, much less murdered classics prof politicians. According to the Wikipedia entry, Garfield was trying to catch a train to Massachusetts to give a speech at Williams when Guiteau shot him.