The other Friday over girlie drinks and a P.B. and J, a female friend who I am not presently involved with sexually and I were trying to hash out a few reasons, hopefully carrying a bit more weight than my arsenal of anti-establishment quipisms, why Hillsdale College in a very real and non-esoteric sense blows like a whale hole:
1. The Statesmanship School, or the possibility thereof.
Students (past, present, future) must oppose this thinly veiled relocation of the Claremont Institute with the same urgency they would rally against any other sort of professional suicide. If the Cap'n gets his way, not only will the school's reputation as a neoconservative haven/compost site be solidified, your degree, especially if it is one in the humanities, will promptly convert from dollar to ruble in the professional marketplace.
EMPLOYER: ...And I see you received your English major from Hillsdale? Political think tanks give out English B.A.'s?
YOU: Well, you see, Hillsdale actually is a college...(nervous Woody Allen-type laugh)... it just seems to have garnered an unfortunate reputation for—
EMPLOYER: You're fired.
YOU: Well, sir, this is actually still the interview—
EMPLOYER: Fired!
2. Culture.
This is a bit difficult because no one actually claims that the college has anything commonly conceived of as an "aesthetic" or "a college environment" or "anything at all to do". True, Hillsdale is located roughly in the northeastern geographic region confirmed by cartographers as the Armpit of the Midwest.
I'm not, however, exclusively blaming the college for this stagnation and the town's gross void in art, music, nightlife, daylife, and more ethnic individuals than a half pack of cigarettes. No, but if students forgo their right to implicate the administration in this cultural lassitude, the school must also forfeit its claim in curtailing alcohol and drug use. And sex.
3. Neoconservatism.
"Well, well, wouldya rather go to like a freakin' left-wing pinko state school?"
Ummmm.
"Then if you hate it so much, why don't you just leave?"
Ah, and here we have isolated the (simulated) neoconservative response to complaints not simply about Hillsdale College, but about our nation and its mounting list of colonies.
How bad is the neoconservatism here? Bad! (Thanks, crowd). Been to the last CCA? Read the last Imprimis? Attended a single political science or history class here? Laid a glassy eye on a teething churn of College Republican geeks practically diarrheaing with ecstasy over W's reelection as spats and spits of party hack rhetoric impair an answer to a simple passing question like, "What if the president had a capital ‘d' in parenthesis beside his name instead of a capital ‘r'?”
As P.J. O'Rourke once said, "The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.”
4. God (kinda).
I have no problem with the guy, he does his thing, I do mine. However, despite the school's adamant claims, Hillsdale is a podunk Bob Jones with voluntary church attendance (if you don't count classes) and a bit, give or take half a bit, more integrity. How could I possibly say this about a non-religiously affiliated school?
-The majority of our religion classes are taught by the Christian Studies department.
-We have a Christian Studies department.
-Students in religion classes almost exclusively study Christianity (did I just complete a proof?).
-The personal information sheet at registration had one non-Judeo-Christian option for church affiliation. Other.
-We have one employed priest: Christian.
-We have one school-owned chapel: Christian.
-We have prayers at official events: Christian.
-The only religious groups on campus are Christian.
-The few professors who aren't Christian keep their mouths shut for good reason.
-Biology profs have learned to fear the wrath of creationist homeschoolers.
I'm not saying there aren't wonderful things about Hillsdale. There are, but the college is at a point in its career similar to The Rolling Stones circa 1978. Off the “Some Girls” album, there were classics like “Beast of Burden” and “Shattered”, but there was also “Miss You”. Keith Richards groovin' through his teeth on a disco lick? What? That must have been a lot of coke.
Come on Stones. Come on Hillsdale.
Dave Frank is a Hillsdale College junior majoring in English.