It has become abundantly clear recently that college and university campuses in the United States have been rife with division. While this is not a new phenomenon in the history of higher education in the United States, it is still a pressing problem that must be addressed in college communities. Binghamton University is no exception to this problem, which became especially apparent during the fall 2023 semester. As a senior at BU, it seems obvious that our campus has a noticeable lack of a larger community that cares for all of its members. Many other colleges in the United States have some common thread which binds all of the members of its community together. This can range from support for majoring and sports programs, popular political or social beliefs or a clear-cut educational philosophy based in established academic traditions. What is BU’s equivalent of this? It cannot simply be that many of its community members are from New York — that is not good enough to be the commonality that brings this campus together and, perhaps, explains why there is a noticeable lack of a larger sense of community here at BU. Building a closer campus is a moral necessity that will allow all — not just some — BU students and staff to feel at home.
Perhaps the most obvious way to increase the closeness of the BU community would be to invest more in the school’s Division I athletics, especially basketball. Supporting BU’s sports teams in greater numbers would give both students and local residents a common cause to come together. However, it seems unlikely that BU basketball will consistently draw large crowds while the school remains in the America East Conference. The purpose of this proposal is not to denigrate any of the athletes or members of the coaching staff for any sport at BU. Both coaches and student-athletes put in significant commitments to ensuring their respective teams are the best they can be. However, there are other schools who have emerged from nonmajor conferences to build powerhouse athletic programs.
One such example is Gonzaga, a Catholic University with a student body of just over 7,000 students, in the West Coast Conference (WCC). The WCC is not a power-five conference. Yet, Gonzaga has consistently built men’s teams that finish in the top 25 of the Associated Press end-of-season rankings. Although this was by no means an easy accomplishment for Gonzaga, their success provides a blueprint for other mid-major schools, such as BU, to follow. The thought of a highly successful basketball program at BU is extremely exciting and would go a long way toward bringing both the University and surrounding community closer together through attending games in greater numbers.
Another source of division within the BU community is along the intellectual front. One way this perpetuates itself is simply through the divisions of the schools at the University. It is difficult, for example, for a student majoring in philosophy to find some intellectual common ground with another student majoring in mechanical engineering. Furthermore, the large class sizes in many courses, especially at the introductory level in Harpur College, are not effective spaces for students to form relationships with their peers and professors. Of course, many of these lectures have discussion sections, but these classes meet less frequently than the lectures and for shorter periods of time. BU students often have to wait until at least their sophomore year to have a class solely taught by a professor and, even then, such classes can contain 40 or more students. Smaller classes allow for more engagement with fellow students and professors, which can only increase intellectual growth and make the BU community closer as a by-product.
Fostering critical thinking skills in the classroom will also be beneficial when it comes to student discourse on campus. Last semester, BU students were sharply divided on the issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is all well and good for students to hold differing opinions on important current events. BU is a diverse campus and many students can bring their unique perspectives and experiences to bear in such debates. This diversity — of culture, ideas or any other category — should be a strength of this campus that brings it closer together. This could emerge through inter-organizational efforts or greater attempts by the school to hold more community-wide events.
These are difficult problems, with no easy solutions. But students, faculty and staff of the BU community must recognize that now is not the time to simply push these problems aside. It has become increasingly easy to lose a sense of close community in today’s hyper-online and fast-paced world. College campuses are one of the few institutions that can engender a real sense of togetherness and belonging to something bigger than oneself. BU must ensure that this is a reality on our campus.
Theodore Brita is a senior majoring in political science.