Open House Reflection
August 13, 2007
A grandeur hangs over the crowd of almost three hundred people. New students eager; old students gather by the door, watching knowingly. They’ve been here before, just one year ago. They know what we don’t. And then a lineup of deans and guest speakers addresses the hushed crowd and we learn how this is where it all began.
Pulitzer wanted a school, a canon for journalism, perhaps a budding cornerstone of ethics to be carried into the future. Though, to my memory, ethics were not the subject. The word may not have even been mentioned.
But isn’t that the point of journalism? Aren’t ethics the border between fiction and nonfiction?
So, yes, in a sense, all of the speakers who told us of Pulitzer and his offer to pay for the school on the Columbia campus, and yes the school turned down the offer for perhaps a dozen years. And then it was built and inside were trained the first of many generations of journalists. And it was good. And now we were here, a scant hallway from the room in which the Pulitzer Prizes are decided and it is now good because we have been chosen.
From the start of the application process there has been a thread of, hey baby, we’re Columbia and we’re #1. Oddly though, it’s always been accompanied by an air of self deprecation, as if the firmament of the journalistic ethos is still the writer and the urge to tell a story. And in that, I felt, from the start, despite some notable logistical issues that I’d more easily associated with municipal systems, rather at home. Here was a place where story is king, where everything is a mendicant in the Garden of Telling. We, no matter how formative our gestation in these ivy halls, were still just storytellers, ancient in profession, the very base of civilization. The story, our singular purpose.
The audience seemed a bit white. Stark contrast from CUNY, the open house of which was like a cross section of NYC, with a veritable rainbow of representation. The Columbia open house was rather light, many out-of-staters, not as much of a black, Hispanic or Asian representation.
Then again, my eyes aren’t the best and clearly my own predilections towards judging situations through a racial lens are implicated more strongly than Columbia’s entrance policies. That, and not every student attending would be at the open house. But there’s a value in observing the various peoples who come together for any occasion, and the anthropologist in me tried to see just what my cohort would be. Still awaiting that dreadful and exciting first day, I can’t say. I’m currently of the mind that while CUNY is aiming for comprehensive urban reportage, Columbia seems to approach journalism more broadly, with the majority of students coming from out of state and even out of country.
Honestly, as much as I was impressed with CUNY, and would not hesitate should the future bring a moment to work closely with a CUNY graduate, Columbia’s wide scope appeals more to my romantic side. Perhaps the opportunity to meet and cavort with Africans and Asians and Europeans and everyone else from everywhere will open doors to things beyond imagination. I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I chose Columbia: It’s unknown. It’s scary. It’s expecting me to live up to some kind of potential about which I’m not necessarily aware. I have no idea what’s going to happen in the next few days.
But I’ll be here, every night, sleeping or awake, frigid or feisty, sober or drunk.
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