By Michael Purtell
Plattsburgh State’s campus became the subject of scrutiny at a recent discussion, as students and faculty gathered to view campuses and the political affiliations therein on a national scale.
The Institute for Ethics in Public Life hosted a discussion titled “Did Universities Get Too Woke” last Wednesday, inviting members of campus to discuss the meaning of the word and its effect on political conversation, college life and whether or not the ideas associated with being woke were harmful to the college experience.
Two special guests attended the unstructured discussion. Plattsburgh alumni Matt Veitch, who currently serves as the Saratoga County supervisor, and David R. DeCancio, the senior advisor to New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.
Professor Daniel Lake, the director for the Institute for Ethics in Public Life, briefly introduced the discussion topic and started the conversation by asking the group to come to concretely define what it means to be woke.
“Their thoughts were in alignment with mine on the issue, which is that calling universities “woke” is mainly symbolic,” Lake wrote in an email. “By that I mean it isn’t that this is really about policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion so much as that universities have been defined as the enemy in a struggle over American society and labeling them as ‘woke’ is mainly signaling that they are bad.”
Plattsburgh senior Cooper Scherer was one of the students in attendance. She left the conversation with the understanding that there is no one identity to what is woke.
“It’s not a coherent ideology. It’s more symbolic for what the right views as wrong,” Scherer said.
The conversation continued from there, leaving students feeling like the answer to the titular question is that “universities are not woke enough,” Scherer said.
The conversation also covered the role of universities in political conversations. The relationship with producing political thinkers makes them an important piece in politics. This makes their relationship with the targeted messaging associated with the woke label more important, and not unique to the current political landscape, Scherer said.
“They are always on the front lines of places to be attacked. I mean, any cultural movement usually goes after the intellectuals,” Scherer said. “You can go back as far as you want, and you’ll find that universities were always interested in acquiring diversity, because the goal was knowledge and discussion, and having as many diverse points of view helps develop these. In that way, universities have always been woke.”
Scherer applied what was discussed to the current state of campus. Her conclusion that Universities are not woke enough led her to trying to identify ways Plattsburgh’s campus can greater spread ideas about diversity and inclusion.
She found her dissatisfaction with campus came mostly from the general student body, as the campus boasts “fantastic” ARO and DEI offices.
“I had a friend who was involved in trying to de-gender the bathrooms — I thought it was a pretty good motion — and the campus reacted a little harshly to that,” Scherer said. “As someone who’s transgender, most of my peers seem to be accepting and most of the staff seems to be accepting, but it also seems to be that the students themselves are not.”
Scherer said that more student engagement with discussions like last Wednesday’s would benefit the student body in becoming more inclusive, as they promote constructive dialogue.
“I wish more people would come to these things. Dr. Lake and the Ethics Institute put in a lot of work to organize them, and I think it’s worthwhile to have these conversations,” Scherer said. “I know I learned a lot and I met people I otherwise would not have met.”
Ironically, there is a lack of true inclusivity at the discussions, Scherer pointed out. Not all viewpoints are represented, with the discussion mainly appealing to center-left individuals. The discussion noticeably lacked far-left and politically right leaning voices, and that came up during the conversation.
The lack of varied voices is the result of a flaw inherent to advertised and organized events being difficult to encourage new people to attend and participate.
“It’s a top down motivation, you’re seeking out people who would already engage rather than encourage general acceptance between people, in my opinion,” Scherer said.
The discussion group concluded the only way to fix the lack of engagement and appeal to the student body is to have more difficult and time consuming one-on-one conversations outside of the organized spaces, Scherer said.
“The whole thing is that they’re afraid of the unknown,” Scherer said. “If you can be known to them, then they have nothing to be afraid of.”
The difficulty of having these conversations with people with differing opinions comes from the polarization of the current political world, especially around identity-politics.
“I really wish it wasn’t that way,” Scherer said.
