<p>On another thread, parents forum, people keep mentioning that Bucknell is so conservative that it is racist. What’s the story? Is there racial tension on campus? Are the students overly conservative to the point of intolerance?</p>
<p>Bucknell doesn't seem conservative. There seems to be a lot more Obama supporters than McCain supporters. Bucknell invited some national pollsters to the campus and they conducted a survey among 600 volunteers. 66% of the participants said they would vote for Obama. I'm a minority and I haven't encountered any problems. Everyone seems accepting of people with different backgrounds. Those people who say that Bucknell is racist clearly have not attended Bucknell.</p>
<p>bucknell is just being thrown to the wolves since it is considered a similar school to lehigh, which has had some problems with race-related incidents over the years. why has lehigh had recurring problems? i have no idea.</p>
<p>as ilmor stated, bucknell is not conservative. based on the huge numbers of students who registered to vote in lewisburg in this years presidential election, we have a pretty good idea of how the student body as a whole leans politically. and just as the quoted poll results showed, democrats outnumbered republicans two to one.</p>
<p>does that make bucknell conservative compared to many other liberal arts colleges? sure. places like oberlin, wesleyan and vassar might have 10-, 15- or 20-1 democratic registration advantages. but that doesnt make bucknell conservative in any real sense of the word; it just makes it less wildly liberal, but still decidedly left of center.</p>
<p>the schools faculty, like most, is quite liberal based on political donation records.</p>
<p>though not a minority, i also cant say that i ever witnessed (or even heard/read of) any overt racism on campus. i remember someone once saying that one of my friends was the strangest (or most eccentric, or something) black person she had ever met. its hard to know intent in such cases (was she stereotyping or just making poor descriptive choices in an off-the-cuff remark), but regardless, it struck me the wrong way and is the worst i can come up with after three years in lewisburg.</p>
<p>i cant recall anything racially tinged ever being published in the conservative clubs student newspaper, either, and im a fairly regular reader as it occasionally contains some humorous and high-quality writing.</p>
<p>I've seen absolutely no signs of racism on the Bucknell campus. In fact, in terms of politics it is quite liberal - as is evidenced by the Obama support. I am friends with a number of minorities, and none of them have experienced any sort of problem.</p>
<p>To be a conservative does not mean that you are a racist or intolerant towards a diverse environment. My daughter, a freshman at Bucknell, is very conservative. Many of her closest friends on campus are minorities or Internationals. She has a wonderful curiosity and interest about other cultures. I think the rural location of Bucknell makes it more difficult to attract a more diverse student population but I know that they are really trying to improve. I think the political views of students lean a bit more to the left. My daughter said that she was only one of 2 students (both legacies... interesting?) on her hall who voted for McCain and she said there was much more visible support for Obama on campus than McCain.</p>
<p>I am a conservative, freshman minority student right now, haha. I think I beat this misconception pretty well. Most of my friends are international students, and we've never experienced any sort of racism yet. I will say, though, that I shockingly read an article in the Bucknellian (student newspaper) today about a swastika and a popular German inscription from the Holocaust era being found etched somewhere... I think in a bathroom? I don't know. It was "coincidentally" found by a Hillel (Jewish community here) member during a... "Hate Free" something... event. My friend and I both discussed how we never expected something like that to show up here.</p>
<p>As for political views, our school was FLOODED with Obama paraphernalia (to the point where, in my opinion, it got obnoxious). Interestingly enough, though, in my hall, all the girls are conservative and all the boys are liberal (we figured this out during some political discussions before the election)... I really don't know how that worked out. But anyway, I would say that the student body leans toward the liberal side, but there is still a strong conservative base (there is even a student-run conservative newspaper here). This year's election was not a good way to measure who is liberal and who isn't, because I know many conservatives who ended up voting for Obama--many didn't like McCain's VP pick or just how started behaving towards the end of the election (and other things). I ended up voting for McCain (and yay, our county or town or whatever had McCain majority vote!), but I will admit that I thought a lot about Obama for the aforementioned reasons. </p>
<p>And of course, as was already mentioned, the faculty is mostly liberal. </p>
<p>I actually didn't like the choices Bucknell made for which political speakers should visit the campus. It was clear from their choices that they were promoting liberalism, in my opinion. But um, that's another story...</p>
<p>Glad to hear that you all seem to think there is not a big problem at Bucknell. I know it is not as diverse as some schools. There are probably many reasons for this (location, location) but student attitudes do not appear to be one of them. </p>
<p>My D (a first-yr) just told me about the swastika incident. It was apparently reported in the school newspaper. But I guess the students (and school administrators) were appalled and it will not be tolerated.</p>