A Tale of Two Bubbles: Student Engagement in Madison and St. Louis
Recently, I’ve forced more than a few friends to listen to me complain about the fact that people only began to care about Wisconsin after I left. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver has become an indie idol, the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl, and Brett Favre gave his reputation as a gunslinger a whole new meaning. And now, all eyes are fixed on Madison as protestors demonstrate against Governor Scott Walker’s proposed legislation that would eliminate or weaken collective bargaining rights for some of the state’s public sector unions. Workers from the world of hard-to-pronounce-cities, from Ashwaubenon to Weyauwega, have united in protest against the bill.
Joining the workers are multitudes of students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The bill contains many cuts and changes that could prove to be harmful for the University. Many of my friends at the University joined in the protests. I have lived vicariously through their Facebook status updates and photos. One friend held a sign at the protests that read “I am a (soon to be) teacher.” Another, along with thousands of others, set up a temporary residence inside the Capitol building. The presence of students at the protests has created unlikely bedfellows. In the Capitol, students have slept and marched alongside their teaching assistants and police officers in opposition to the bill.
Meanwhile, at Washington University, many are decrying what they see as “political apathy” amongst their fellow students. While students in Madison are filling Capitol Square, Wash. U. student groups struggle to fill a room for a panel discussion. This topic has been a subject of incessant discussion recently, but no one has asked how features of the school contribute to this apathy.
One could argue that it has to do with the students themselves. Some have maintained that Wash. U. students are fundamentally different from students at other universities and simply care less about what is going around in the world. I do not buy this. This is not to say that students at Wash. U. don’t differ from students at other schools – quite clearly, they do. On average, Wash. U. students have a higher socio-economic status and are more geographically diverse than Wisconsin students. But this doesn’t mean that Madison is full of budding Lech Walesa’s. Many of the students who have filled Capitol Square are the same students who contribute to the keg culture on Football Saturdays that make W.I.L.D. seem like a poetry reading. We are not different students; we merely channel our passion in different ways. Madison students look toward the Capitol, while we look inwards. We devote entire programming weeks to the topic. The programming is for students by students.
Some could attribute our inward-looking tendency to the proverbial “Wash. U. bubble.” Proponents of this view explain that this bubble limits a student’s ability to perceive the outside world. This is a flawed explanation as well. Growing up, my parents and teachers frequently told me that I lived in a bubble. Madison is referred to as “seventy-five square miles surrounded by reality”. Its unemployment rate barely pushes five percent, the Democratic Party is often the most conservative party on the local ballot, and even the cab drivers have a Ph.D.
In coming to Wash. U., I merely hopped from one bubble into another. I guess that is what we spend our whole lives doing. We are limited by time, space, and experience. Robert Pirsig wrote, “We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.” Blaming it on the bubble is merely blaming Wash. U. students for perceiving the world as humans do.
It is the contents of our bubble – what we choose to include in it – that creates variation. Our very campus constrains this agency. It is the Versailles of St. Louis; a pink granite citadel on a hilltop that, like a thermos, is very effective at limiting exposure from the surrounding environment. No public streets run through the campus. Unlike other schools, there is no reason or occasion for an average Wash. U. student to come into contact with a St. Louis area resident or vice versa. A sense of ownership is rarely fostered. We never refer to St. Louis as “our city,” nor do St. Louis natives refer to Wash. U. as “our school.”
Growing up, the University of Wisconsin was my school. I was not a student there and neither were my parents. But I always wore red on Saturdays. I went to summer programs on campus. I attended lectures with my high school classmates. My mom hired its students to work for her. Its students, for the most part, went to area high schools. Its graduates were my teachers and nurses.
In forging a national identity, it seems as though Wash. U. has lost its local identity. The school prides itself on the fact that ninety-percent of its students hail from outside of Missouri and that sixty percent of its undergraduate students come from more than 500 miles away. These students are the nation’s best and brightest, but they struggle to identify with St. Louis. The city is a mere pit stop before they return to the northeastern Megalopolis or Silicon Valley. Wash. U.’s status as a private school means that it will never fall victim to state budget cuts. Its current status as Westchester of the Midwest means that it will never become St. Louis’ school.
Students will only shed their apathy when they have a personal stake in community issues. The best way to do this is by removing structural barriers to engaging with the city. It is time to stop the talk about bursting the Wash. U bubble, and start thinking about expanding it.