absolutely the best preparation for any potential career, even if the major doesn’t exactly map onto what someone might do. But I don’t think that parents and students fully appreciate that. So our Hameetman Career Center becomes vital in helping our graduates make the case effectively for themselves. I also saw how polished our competitors’ communication is so that eventually almost all colleges start to look like one another. And that was a small epiphany for me because I thought I had an acute sense of our distinctiveness. But I came away wondering if we’re able to communicate that adequately and separate ourselves from the pack because they all talk about international education and civic engagement. The last revelation from these tours is a certain amount of humility. When my daughter was touring a school in New England that I fell in love with, I turned to her afterward and asked, “What’d you think?” And she said, “Did you notice the tour guide? Well, he was wearing flip-flops.” And I said, “Big deal.” She said, “Well, did you notice that he had an extra toe?” That’s all she’s going to remember about that college. And I was crestfallen because I thought that this is a great place for her. And she doesn’t want to go there because the tour guide has an extra toe. So should our tour guides all wear closed-toed shoes? (Laughing) Exactly. If you ran across a high school senior on campus, how would you sell Occidental to them? I would say that what a residential college offers is close relationships with faculty members, a set of friends that will become lifelong, the ability to talk through more readily the challenges of any particular assignment, the opportunity to participate in athletics—things you can only do in a particular place and time. And I wouldn’t say it this way to a high school senior, but it’s awesome. But in addition to Oxy’s signature programs—study abroad, the Kahane United Nations program, Campaign Semester, undergraduate research—I would also cite all the things that probably are too far distant for them to think about: their friendships, their intellectual passions, the foundation for their career, questions about what brings meaning to their lives, even a potential partner. What do you say to parents about the high cost of higher education?
Photos (pages 27, 28) by Marc Campos
We’ve had the lowest tuition increases in the last 20 years over the last several years, but we’re keenly aware that for some middle-class households student debt has made college an almost impossible stretch. One of the things the forthcoming comprehensive campaign will be focused on is scholarship support, not only for families of modest means but middle-class families as well. So is Oxy able to meet the financial needs of all of its admitted students? We’re able to meet full demonstrated need of all the students we admit. But there are only a handful of colleges and universities that are need-blind. We are need-sensitive, which means that we turn away some students that we would love to have here because we just don’t have enough financial aid money to go around. But the students we admit, we support fully—another reason we need to raise more money for scholarships. Our
future fundraising efforts are designed to extend this support. What are the biggest misconceptions you come across in talking with alumni? There’s a misperception about the management of the endowment. Thanks to Ian McKinnon ’89, Chris Varelas ’85, and the work of the Board of Trustees investment committee, we have exceeded our benchmarks for the last decade. Another misconception is that the curriculum isn’t as rigorous as it may have been in the past. Quite the contrary. While the curriculum will inevitably change over time, the core skills that Oxy teaches—interpretation, analysis, effective communication, etc.—are very much the same. I think that alumni sometimes imagine that this is a campus that is immersed in constant controversy, and that it consumes our entire bandwidth. And the truth is, those WINTER 2017 OCCIDENTAL MAGAZINE 29