After three years at Binghamton University, I can say with confidence that it is time to leave. It’s the right time to get out of this University while it still resembles the one I entered.
Don’t get me wrong — I have the same mixed feelings about graduating as everyone else, and my experience here was by no means a bad one. I took classes that challenged me, met professors who inspired me and made friends who helped me grow into a better person than I was before.
Yet as I think about my time here and the future, I cannot escape the feeling that it’s time to get out. As the University takes transitions into the next decade, it is changing and growing. I no longer want to be part of the transformations taking place here.
Last year, we were told that increasing enrollment to 20,000 people (Stenger’s 20 by 2020 plan) would benefit us all. There would be more graduate students to work as TAs and more opportunities for students of all disciplines. When I toured Binghamton in 2011, 14,000 students studied here. I chose BU specifically because I didn’t want to be another number in a crowd. I chose not to go to Penn State or University of Delaware because I didn’t want a “big state school” experience.
When I began freshman year, I was fortunate to be placed in College-in-the-Woods. I had the privilege to remain a part of this warm, welcoming community for the next two years. BU boasts community living as a means of connecting students and breaking a large university into manageable parts. I question how the growing number of students will threaten community living and safety nets like the one I built in CIW.
In the past year, I have seen my university provide less and less for me and my peers.
Services are stretched thin already. There isn’t enough advising or mental health staff. There are no parking spots and there is no room at the gym. BU Brain crashes every time people register for classes. An increasing number of classes and sections resulted in the elimination of a reading period for finals. Classes end later at night to accommodate increased numbers. The library is filled to capacity.
This list may seem like the complaints of a whiny graduate, looking back and bitching about waiting in line. That may be true, but as our campus continues to expand, I don’t foresee these problems disappearing. And why? What’s the point of this huge push to grow like some collegiate manifest destiny? The answer is that the University is building a brand.
A lot of it boils down to how national rankings work. When U.S. News and World Report, Kaplan or any of the other publications that put out lists every year rank schools, academics only play a small part. Increased enrollment increases name recognition and the percentage of alumni that donate to the school. If the University improves on these metrics, the marketing team can put “ranked number one by the Princeton Review” on all admissions brochures. That’s the reason so many of us seniors are suddenly being asked to donate before we even graduate. BU has its eye on the prize.
Of course it isn’t all about donations. The more grad students who enroll here — the plan is for 6,000 more to come — the more funding the University receives for research. The more research that takes place, the more people talk about us and the closer we come to that elusive goal: prestige.
The quest for prestige has left me disillusioned. I came here to go to the “premier public university of the Northeast” because, like many of you, BU was the best school my family could afford. As I meditate on leaving this place, I am glad to be getting out before expansion crushes what I loved about this school in the first place. Palpable anxiety exists on this campus, and I am truly worried about the state of the University in the future. Good luck to everyone who is sticking around, and try not to get lost underfoot.