I Am Not Proud To Be An Alumna Of My University

I always imagined my college experience playing out like I could be the next Elle Woods or Rory Gilmore. I would run between ancient buildings where students learned from great scholars and books as big as their faces, fueled solely by coffee and a love of learning.

This was how I imagined college before I understood that my imagined “great scholars” were mostly white men-before I knew of Audre Lorde and Octavia Butler and Malcom X. This was how I imagined college before I was thrown into a business that monetizes the dreams of rightfully naïve teenagers and allows them to be wrung dry.

In the eyes of most universities, students are dollar signs, not human beings. Drexel University, my alma mater, was rarely an exception.

Student Resources: Where Are You Hiding Them?

Drexel would claim it has an abundance of resources. Here is there page for solely new-student resources. It is beautifully crafted to give off the appearance that all students are supported. I can tell you that after having attended Drexel, it’s all a façade. Any support networks must be intentionally sought out in the free time no student has, especially on a 10-week quarter. Do you take a full class load in 10 weeks? was a common question I received while at Drexel. Yes, I did, I would say to what was usually a shocked face.

When you can barely stay vertical, finding a therapist can be hard. Finding a therapist that you like and fits with your busy schedule is next to impossible. The resources are there, but you have to hunt for them. For example, after the defendant in my sexual assault case was found in violation of the code of conduct by the Office of Equality and Diversity, they did not reach out to see how I was doing or set up a follow-up time to meet.

It was made known that they were there if I wanted to talk. What would have resourced me was the university reaching out, as if to say, hey, we care how you’re doing. Ha. It’s like a one-sided relationship. If you want anything, you have to ask. Not once, usually many times, to many people. If you need support, you have to go find it, and hope it’s what you’re seeking. If it’s not, can you settle? Will you take the Left Twix when you prefer the Right?

The student body at Drexel is currently 51.9% White, 16% Asian, 7.94% Black, 6.39% Latinx, with less than 1% of the student body identifying as Bi or Multiracial or American Indian. I cannot speak on behalf of my non-white peers. I do imagine that existing as a non-white person at a predominantly white institution, in a space made for white bodies by white-bodied people, adds a whole new dimension to the need for active, present support.

Which, if you haven’t caught onto yet, Drexel does not offer.

College is hard. It’s a new world, with new friends, and some of us know no one. I was one of those people. Nothing should make it harder than it already is, but feeling invisible to the university you pay $60,000 a year to does in fact make college harder.

You Know Your Job Entails Working With Students, Right?

With a few notable exceptions I was able to find throughout my college experience, administration, faculty and staff were not interested in student’s opinions. No amount of emails, meetings or support from others would garner a response other than one you had heard before. There was always a ready-made response to an issue no matter who you spoke to.

There was always a ready made response no matter what, like ramen noodles. George Floyd was brutally murdered, and Drexel was deeply sorry. Drexel’s response raised outrage from the community, so they formed an “anti-racism task force” meant to “eradicate racism in University policies and practices.”

Should it be surprising the announcement of this task force only came after Drexel Police tear-gassed protesters, out of their response zone no less? Appearances had to be kept up after the call the defund campus police. The announcement of an anti-racism task force was predictable, if nothing else. Drexel never fails to simultaneously bore me and outrage me.

It’s utterly disappointing to pay for an experience and instead receive people that aren’t truly interested in bettering your life at their university at all. Instead, they are interested in the financial advancement and expansion of their university at the cost of the surrounding neighborhoods and at the cost of their own students.

A notable example of this aversion to engagement with the community Drexel serves was a “Patients Over Profits” protest led mainly by student nurses and nurses that worked at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children after Drexel sold this hospital and another, Hahnemann University Hospital, which has since closed, to Tower Health.

The protest was held during the university president’s office hours pre-COVID-19, which are meant to be open for conversation, and he(the university president, John Fry)retreated inside his office and shut the door, refusing to come out.

Do You Actually Want Me To Teach Myself?

Is college just a sick psychological experiment where we figure out how we can succeed under the crushing pressure of teaching ourselves material? Let me take a moment and give credit where it’s due to all of the professors that I admire, who taught me well, who went above and beyond, and who filled my brain to the brim with information I wouldn’t know otherwise. You are all amazing!

In at least half of my classes, the professor either was not qualified to teach the class, or was not a good teacher even if they did know the information. I like to think we were all doing our best at the time. No one can always give 100% when they’re paying or working for an institution that doesn’t truly view them as a whole human being, but rather in terms of how the institution benefits from that person.

West Philly Is Not Dangerous

Okay, not more dangerous than any other part of Philadelphia. Although Drexel would have you believe that just because the school buildings look shinier means it’s campus is safer. This is factually not true; anyone remember when someone was shot in a pizza joint on campus? Gosh, I feel old.

When I say West Philly, I don’t mean the parts where college kids crawl. I mean the parts white people, college kids, and non-Philly natives(there is some overlap between those groups) “other” as dangerous until we see long-time locals being tear gassed at those same “dangerous” places by the private police forces created to protect us, the students that attend universities less than 20 blocks away.

Drexel and other major universities like the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jefferson University have continued to expand into and erase the historically black communities around them. With that, a few things have become evident. Money is the most important factor at play for these mega non-profits we call “universities, higher education, best 4 years of our lives”, and the voices of the community are rarely, if ever heard or given a seat at the table.

The line between what is harmful and non-harmful becomes more and more blurry for those of us that have had the privilege to live in oblivion to the racist, capitalist systems our universities embody and uphold.

Entire communities have been erased from the mind of the collective by universities. Philadelphia natives continue to be pushed out of their homes and watch the communities they grew up in be divested from so that colleges can expand. Institutions as big as Drexel could do so much good. A true eradication of racism in University policies and practices will not begin without divesting from what keeps the “university community” separate from the local community.

This includes a private police force for the university, money invested in areas closer to the city at the expense of historic neighborhoods, only offering lower-paying jobs as “career opportunities” to residents and coining names like “University City” to other the rest of West Philadelphia.

Invest in the long-time residents. Invest in the communities that have been there. Invest in Philadelphia.

I gained some of my best friends, invaluable life experience and treasured memories and communities from my college experience. I also give Drexel University no credit for any of it, and I wouldn’t recommend you go there. My own experiences and opinions about my alma mater come with a variety of complex emotions about college and systems of power as a whole.

Why do we continue to give higher education the credit we do? Is there a better way to obtain higher education than selling our souls, mental and emotional health and our credit scores to people that don’t give a shit about us?

Key Takeaways:

• Students shouldn’t have to go on a scavenger hunt just to feel like they have a support system at a place that will be their home for 4 years. I’m not saying the transition should be easy-life is not intrinsically easy-but college shouldn’t make it harder for students to get what they need.

• Student, faculty, staff, alumni and community voices should be truly given a seat at the table. Universities should be co-creating the world everyone wants to build together with key stakeholders. This sounds like a wonderful utopian fantasy.
• You should get what you pay for! That means you should get a good education(at minimum). Why are you teaching yourself the entire Krebs Cycle?
• There should not be a separation between the university and the community. This creates a perception that the community is dangerous and leads to common sentiments , like “ don’t walk there alone,” it’s dangerous at night” and to the dreaded student that lives their whole life in a 2 block radius. Common sense should be exercised, but fear should not be weaponized to divide us.

I can’t wait to receive an email that reads something like this in a few days:

Miss Prairie,

You are a cherished alumna, and we wanted to reach out concerning an article you wrote that was brought to our attention. We are deeply upset you had these experiences at Drexel and look forward to continuing to create positive memories with you in the future.

All the best,

Someone High Up Enough You’ll Get My Assistant If You Reply To This Email

Read more about mega non-profits in Philadelphia(mostly universities and hospitals) and how they can pay their dues to the communities they take from here: