The University of Wyoming's student service policies have rightly come under scrutiny. Institutions that serve the public should be transparent with the public.
I'm grateful for that fact, because it helps the university listen to all of its constituents, not just the loudest few. As someone who does the actual work of the university and teaches students in the classroom, I'm grateful for the excitement and joy on campus during the first week of classes, despite all the uproar about the university's missteps.
I feel that excitement now that I'm a teacher. I remember that excitement when I was a student. Neither of my parents had a college degree. My mom was a school bus driver and my dad was a factory worker. They knew a lot about how the world works, how it's not always fair, and how it's often tough for people who work to make a living, but they didn't have the college experience, so they helped me in any way they could. I didn't know half the things I should have known when I went to school. But I did know that it would be exciting to be on campus at the start of a new semester. It felt like I had a future.
I didn't know it then, but I know it in my heart now: what makes a land-grant university like the University of Wyoming special is that its mission is to serve the people, not just the privileged few. When universities remember and stick to their mission, they earn the respect of their students, their parents, and the people they serve.
Land-grant universities were founded in the 19th century as an alternative to elitist models of higher education. Even into the 20th century, most prestigious universities excluded students based on factors beyond their control, such as their class, skin color, or gender. Founding land-grant universities sometimes created additional problems, especially when they were built on stolen land or when they caved to outside pressures and ignored their mission. But hard work is the nature of mission-based work. Perhaps it is precisely in the times when we are not living up to its ideals that the mission remains its North Star, shining even when we do not see it.
Currently, our university is fighting back against congressional funding cuts to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. I hope that those who supported this move will understand that the UW administration is not only following the law but also going above and beyond its directives to appease critics. We will have to wait and see if this strategy is successful.
My concern is that doing so would further undermine the university's commitment to its mission. When people ask me what a land-grant university does, what makes it special, I answer that a land-grant university should provide an adequate education for the proudest and an education that is accessible to the poorest.
In my opinion, that is the highest spirit of this land-grant university's mission: to pursue both the highest quality ideas and the greatest commitment to opportunity and equality for all its citizens. It's a mission that I can support as a faculty member, and it's a mission that has helped me, a working-class kid, realize the future I wanted and that my parents wanted for me.
It's a popular idea now that freedom means destroying everything you don't like in your path. That may be true sometimes, but it's not always true. And what's popular isn't always wise. Free people need tools like the vote and a quality, universally accessible education to exercise their freedom.
The first week of classes is an exciting time, but it is also a time of uncertainty, depending on how universities will be restructured in response to Congress' directive. A mission, like a code or character, is something that can keep individuals and organizations on the right path, no matter what the winds blow and critics try to push them away.
Whatever university becomes, it will succeed or fail depending on how it forgets or ignores its mission.