I had planned to write this column about the The Roots concert celebrating Amy Gutmann's inauguration. I had planned to write about how The Roots have a positive political message that goes hand-in-hand with Gutmann's. I had planned to write that such a pop culture appeal to the students was a great start to her term as Penn's president.
Unfortunately, after watching and participating in Gutmann's inauguration week, I really can't write about any of these things.
My overwhelming impression of the inauguration festivities is this: The inauguration, and by extension the Office of the President, is not for students. It is not focused on them, and they are not focused on it.
Gutmann's inauguration ceremony itself is the most blatant and egregious example of this mind-set. Undergraduates, except for so-called "student leaders," were cordially disinvited from attending the ceremony. That's right -- in the initiation of the next chapter in the life of Penn, the kick-off of the next era in our school, rank-and-file students were not allowed to go.
Some will say that it was physically impossible to invite the student body, because Irvine Auditorium simply isn't big enough. That is true, and given the dreary rain that plagued yesterday, it seems like a compelling argument, but what about an outdoor ceremony? What about the Convocation-like rows of folding chairs on Hill Field or College Green? What about the 52,000-plus capacity of Franklin Field? The speech was set up in a place that physically excluded a massive percentage of the Penn community, and with the other options available, it's just ridiculous.
There are countless areas on which Penn must focus in order to be a strong University: graduate programs, faculty research and the sheer advancement of human knowledge through the interaction of brilliant minds. I am by no means saying that these should be neglected, but Penn should be a university before all else, a place of learning for young people who have yet to make their mark on the world.
I understand that undergraduate education is not the alpha and the omega of Penn, but it should at least be the alpha. Undergraduates should get pride of place, not get shut out in the rain.
Even the concert, quite obviously the handout to undergraduate interests, smacked of mere lip service. A free concert should be a huge draw for us cheap college students, but the crowd on Hill Field that night was sparse and generally unenthusiastic.
How is this possible? Well, given the circumstances, it is blindingly obvious. It was a Wednesday night, smack-dab in the middle of midterms. Also, it seemed like the only people who went were those that did not care about the outcome of the presidential debate, or (more importantly) the Red Sox-Yankees game.
This confluence of reasons to stay home, and the odd fact that most of these complications weren't foreseen, shows again that undergrads were not the primary concern of inauguration organizers.
Even the choice of bands now strikes me as a cop-out. Since The Roots didn't address their political aims, and in fact hardly mentioned Gutmann at all, I can no longer believe with any kind of intellectual integrity that they were chosen to play because of their message. Instead, the fact that they are not hugely famous (read: not hugely expensive) and play lots of live shows in Philly now seem like more central criteria.
"Wait, what about the barbecue Friday afternoon?" shout those who will be very angry about this column. Sure, that was great for us kids, but in all honesty, it was just a free lunch. In honor of the most important moment in the last decade of Penn's history, that should be the bare minimum, not something to hold up as a shining example.
But the disinterest between the Office of President and the student body is not a one-way street. Those students who did go to the concert weren't thinking about Gutmann -- they were thinking about Rahzel. The three morons standing next to me who tried to start a "Gutmann! Gutmann!" chant stopped quickly when no one joined in.
This apathy was summed up best by professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson during the first inauguration symposium panel discussion (the audience of which, by the way, was at most five percent students). She talked about how it is easier to make middle school-aged children care about a mayoral candidate than a presidential one, because the mayor's decisions will have a more immediate impact on their lives.
Though she didn't know it at the time, Jamieson was simultaneously describing the way Penn students feel about the faculty and administration. Though objectively we should care, it's difficult to feel that way about an office that, in all likelihood, will do nothing to substantially change our college experiences.
On the other hand, we care tremendously about our teaching assistants, any one of whom could fail us and thus have a major and catastrophic impact on our lives.
I'm not trying to blame Gutmann or Penn students exclusively, because I think both are at fault. It's just sad to see this new administration born without any attempt to change the existing dynamic.
