<p>Judging from my username, one can infer that I am a Conservative who is interested in Liberal Arts Colleges (I share a lot of my political views with the Tea Party, although socially I am far less extreme). Since I live in the same area as Wesleyan, I decided to take 15 minute long journey southbound and tour the school. During my April visit, I grew quite fond of the campus, academic opportunities, and alumni network, but I am mildly concerned as to how a pastel polo wearing, "upper middle class" Connecticut boy would fit in in such a liberal environment (other schools I am interested in are Trinity, BC, and Holy Cross for example). I feel as though Wes is a fantastic option for myself, but would like an opinion regarding my social well being so if anyone has any personal stories or knows any Conservative Cardinals, please feel free to share. Thank you all in advance!</p>
<p>Note: I am neither ignorant nor judgmental (I can sense that someone may say that). I am just curious about whether or not I will have a difficult time fitting in and socially enjoying my time there.</p>
<p>I hate to break it to you but a lot of the Wes students are going to be upper middle class and more as it is a very expensive college. There will be many students from the northwest. Of course there are students on aid but like any top LAC/Ivy plus or really any expensive college, it is going to be majority well off people.</p>
<p>I don’t know if there are current or recent Wes students posting. I do agree that Wes is a great school academically. It would appeal to me socially. It is going to have a very liberal leaning student body with some decidedly hard core activist types. Did you get to meet students? A student I know went to accepted student day and was so very impressed with the students prospies and existing. She felt there was so much talent present. She is pretty moderate and not political and did think the activist side might be a little tiring for her. But othh, she went to an event that really opened her mind and she was very positive about that experience. (She would have liked attending but it did not quite work out financially.) I think of Brown which is considered so liberal but I think a conservative student would be fine because there are definately like minded students though they will be a minority. But it is just a much larger college. And enough apolitical students where it isn’t going to be an issue unless you yourself have to talk about politics all the time. But tea party level might be another thing, not even most Republicans are happy with those. So I just don’t know,. It seems a strange environment to put yourself into since I assume that is how you mainly identify yourself since it was nearly all you mentioned. Since you are close, visit again for an overnight when school is in session, or take a flyer on it keep an open mind and do the accepted student day and decide yourself.</p>
<p>I’m not a current student (far from it!) But, I do remember at one point living in the same dormitory as the President of the Connecticut Young Republicans. This was at the height of the Vietnam War when Richard Nixon was president; you can imagine the turbulence. He had a gift for organization and spent quite a bit of time away from campus, networking. I think it all culminated in an invitation to the White House to attend a youth conference where he got to shake the president’s hand. I won’t name him, but, his Wikipedia entry (which I know should be taken with a grain or two of salt) is pretty impressive.</p>
<p>Otherwise, I think he was cut from very different cloth than the OP. As he would have been the first to tell you, he was from Bridgeport. He was not a party goer. I never saw him with a drink in his hand (even though the legal age was 18.) In fact, I rarely saw him on weekends. I’ve always felt it was a shame that he never found the time to socialize with people very different from himself and wondered whether this would have had any effect on how he viewed his Wesleyan experience, until one day, not long ago I noticed a by-line written by a then current student with the same last name. It is such an unusual name that I was certain there was some kind of legacy relationship. Maybe, that answered my question: Wesleyan couldn’t have been so bad or he wouldn’t have sent his own kid there.</p>
<p>I don’t know if there are any conservatives there but if it makes you feel any better, I am conservative and I will be attending Wesleyan in the fall so you won’t be completely alone if you decide to attend. I am also a military veteran and I have no money so I’m probably not going to fit in with anyone but I don’t care. Surrounding yourself around only similar and like minded people in my opinion is not a good thing, and I bet a lot of the problems in this country could be helped if people had a greater understanding of other people and opposing views. </p>
<p>At the end of the day what I ultimately care about from college is an excellent education, which I believe Wesleyan will deliver. There are 9 other vets accompanying me and some of them are conservative so there will be a few of us. I also know that Wesleyan had Justice Scalia speak at the school who is a champion of the Republican Party and people we mostly respectful, unlike Brandeis University which chased off Condoleezza Rice. The reality is most elite colleges especially in the northeast are going to lean left. Even Michael Bloomberg has commented on the lack of variety in America’s colleges. I just returned from a summer program at Yale for vets at the situation there is the same. Just make sure you are able to engage in debates respectfully and are able to defend your views and articulate your beliefs. If you can do that than you should be fine. Who knows, you might be able to teach your classmates something. I personally get along fine with people who are liberal and conservative and if I encounter any crazy close minded militant activists with no life experience, I just won’t waste my breath dealing with them! </p>
<p>I was really thrilled to hear about this posse program. I know that Wes has a well deserved reputation for being liberal politically but the administration’s commitment (one of the few universities to do so) to the veteran posse program tells me that Wes has a serious interest in bringing interesting and vibrant points of view to the school and is not just stuck in one voiewpoint. In a school of Wes’ size, 10 vets a year can really make a difference in the conversation and that should be embraced. The very best of luck to you SpecOpsRigger. Wes is really a great institution and you’ll get a terrific education. Hang onto that great attitude. My son has loved Wes, and I’ve often been surprised and interested to see him embrace some views - after reflection and discussion- that were more conservative or liberal than his original take. That is what the conversation is all about.</p>
<p>If that is all you got from my post than you obviously missed the point. I was trying to offer some help and advice to the OP. What I was not trying to do is engage in some political debate with some anonymous internet idiot like yourself. </p>
<p>Just because we didn’t find them doesn’t mean he wasn’t making WMDs; there is a lot of sand under which to hide them over there. How deep can satellites search? Who knows where he put them? But I digress.</p>
<p>It’s great that Wesleyan is welcoming veterans: firstly, because those who serve our country <em>should</em> get a break now and then, and getting a world-class education is one heck of a privelege; and secondly, because military folks tend to run a bit more conservative than the general public… so probably waaaay right of the average Wes student. This will result in an infusion of differing viewpoints, maybe even a different mindset altogether. And as long as it is respectful, arguing is a very good thing in an academic setting. </p>
<pre><code>I don’t think many Wesleyan students define themselves through political ideology. Yes, most of them are liberal, but it doesn’t form the cornerstone of their social identity. For example, the Wesleyan Democrats is a pretty marginal organization on campus, maybe this is because many students are to the left of the democrats, but I think it’s because students are apathetic about establishing a broader political identity, and would rather not have one at all or focus on specific issues. So, by extension, people aren’t particularly concerned with others’ political viewpoints. But I do think there’s a lot of political self-segregation on campus, not because students seek out friends with views that affirm their own, but because people with particular political views gravitate towards certain interests.
This a long way of saying that you probably won’t feel uncomfortable as a conservative at Wesleyan, but I doubt that many of your friends will be activists. Also being a smart, nice, interesting and fun person goes a lot further than subscribing to any particular political views or dressing a certain way. That said, conservative social views are especially unpopular at Wesleyan, and I would encourage a lot of doing a lot of listening before publicly discussing issues of identity politics, but I suppose that depends upon how iconoclastic you want to be.
Finally, I’m really interested to see how the Posse program plays out. Wesleyan is an idiosyncratic place, and I’m curious what the integration process will be like and what vets’ opinions are on the community as a whole. Keep us apprised SpecOpsRigger! Personally, I don’t think Wesleyan’s lack of political diversity is much of a problem compared to the homogeneity of many students’ social backgrounds, and the Posse program is an interesting way of addressing that, among other things.
</code></pre>
<ul>
<li>liberal who graduated wesleyan further to the left</li>
</ul>
<p>Ok it was Rutgers. Both have been in the news recently so I guess I mixed them up. I don’t have a problem being corrected, but you should do so with Respect. That is something I learned from the military. </p>
<p>Anyways for those who are interested, myself and the other veterans visited the campus this past week. I have been surprised and truly impressed with how much effort has been made by the Wesleyan staff to welcome us in. In particular, with addressing our “non-traditional” housing needs and being flexible with their requirement that every student live on campus. housing was of particular concern to me since I have a family. This program really is amazing, I definitely would not be able to attend a college like Wesleyan without this kind of support. I have a stack of business cards of people who have offered their help. I hope the ten of us do well and more colleges get on board with recruiting veterans. </p>
<p>if you’re the sort of conservative who will go out of your way to make your avatar an american flag with photoshop effects, wesleyan is probably not going to be the best place to have a good time.</p>
<p>if you can keep your conservatism to yourself, you can make it work well.</p>
<p>there are plenty of conservatives in the frats, in the science and econ majors, and also with the kids who like sports a lot, though those still have a lot of liberals too</p>
<p>Oh and BTW don’t lump Scalia and Condi Rice in same boat.</p>
<p>I despise Scalia, but he’s not broken any laws and I doubt anybody can make a reasonable case that he has. Not wanting to hear him speak is a blatant case of simply silencing speech you don’t agree with, which is reprehensible in an academic context.</p>
<p>Rice on the other hand is viewed by many as a criminal, and I can totally understand how someone would not want their commencement addressed delivered by someone who should be in prison.</p>
<p>I have no affiliation with Wesleyan, but I think my comment would apply to many more liberal colleges, including Wesleyan. How comfortable you, as a conservative, will be depends on a few things. It depends in part on how friendly you are, whether you like to argue a lot, whether you are combative, etc. But it also depends on what kind of conservative you are. If you are primarily a fiscal conservative, you will have a lot of discussions but you will not really have problems. If you are the kind of conservative who opposes same-sex marriage, you may have a lot of problems. (You may also have issues if you are pro-life, but there will also be some pro-life Catholics who are otherwise more liberal.)</p>
<p>No worries, have all the fun you want. One problem with message boards is it can be tough to interpret the intended tone of the poster. I do appreciate your clarification however. </p>
<p>I wasn’t that offended anyways, if I allowed myself to be so easily offended I would not have lasted long in the military. </p>
<p>As a current student at Wesleyan, you might find it difficult to adjust. Conservatives are VERY much so in the minority. The most conservative student I have come across (or who openly affiliated themselves with a political party) was a libertarian. I always thought I was a super liberal democrat and even find myself frustrated when confronted with some more politically active/liberal students. If you tend to agree with politics of the Tea Party, Wes is most certainly not the place for you in all honesty. </p>
<p>That is utter nonsense. What you just said demonstrates why conservatives are needed even more at schools like Wesleyan. The best way to prevent people from becoming extremists on either end of the spectrum is to expose them to different ideas and opposing views. Its really sad how polarized our country has become. No one should have to be afraid of expressing their political opinions. I certainly am not and will have zero patience for disrespect. Anyone who forms their friendships around someone’s political opinions is not someone I want to associate with anyway. </p>
<p>In the military we have people with opposing views which people express freely but remain friends at the end of the day. College should be the place where individuals should feel the most comfortable with exchanging ideas. </p>
<p>I’m skeptical of some of these militant activists that I have heard of at Wes. I sense there is a bit of mob mentality and I doubt some of the passion and rhetoric. I think a good deal of it comes from a lack of maturity with young kids trying to find their identity in life. And for the record, a Tea Party person (which I am not) should be no more rejected than an Occupy Wallstreet zealot. </p>