Anyone know where Davidson falls on the woke spectrum?
Are you asking about faculty or students, or both?
The students I have know who have attended Davidson in the recent past I would describe as moderate to slightly conservative socially.
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My slightly conservative friend who is a student there disagrees. He says you just have to keep your views to yourself if they fall at all on the conservative side.
Not related to your question, but we live close to Davidson and it’s interesting how CC loves Davidson, but the students don’t seem to. Three students I’ve spoken to in the last year say they wouldn’t have gone there if they had it to do over again. And my daughter follows some social media app with anonymous posts that she interprets as mostly unhappy. Maybe that’s just the nature of that type of expression, but worth noting.
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Davidson is small and isolated. It has moved up rankings quite a bit over the last two decades and is now nationally recognized, which in turn attracts a lot of prestige hungry kids. When I moved to NC in 2001, it was not quite as popular but Steph Curry changed that! Now a lot of kids choose Davidson.
Davidson has a ton of standard strong students from lager cities/towns/burbs and they tend to lean center left. YMMV.
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I am a native NC-er. My husband went to Davidson and we have friends with kids at Davidson now.
As far as woke-ness, yes you can find that at Davidson. One of our friend’s kids who went there is a huge Bernie supporter, but generally Davidson tends to skew a little more traditional. Frats (including KA) have historically been a big thing, but I think they aren’t quite as much of a must these days.
There are also eating houses you can join, and three sororities, AKA & Delta Sigma Theta (both historically African American sororities) and Lambda Pi Chi (Latina sorority).
The kids we have known who went to Davidson have really loved it. And alums are super tight. Many of my husband’s best friends are from his years at Davidson.
Davidson has always been a very well regarded school. It has never been “meh” nor has it been a step down from UNC and Duke. My husband got a scholarship to UNC but turned it down to go to Davidson. It has been very highly regarded since way before the USNews rankings were even a thing. It’s a short trip to Charlotte, so I wouldn’t describe that as the middle of nowhere, but ymmv.
It’s a great school. Very challenging course work.
Just wanted to add that when you think of “woke” schools Davidson is not going to be one that comes to mind like Berkeley or Reed, etc. It’s also not on the most conservative list, either. I would say it’s pretty moderate politically. You can find liberal kids and conservative kids both.
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The same college may seem “conservative” to a left-leaning student and “woke” to a right-leaning student.
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Another NC’er here. Our HS sends a couple of kids to Davidson each year on various athletic scholarships. I haven’t heard of anyone leaving early. I have always thought of it as highly regarded, but a student would have to love a small, relatively isolated school with the closest large city (Charlotte) 35-40 minutes away on a good traffic day. Those who aren’t prepared for that, may find themselves unhappy there. It’s also pretty pricey, which takes it out of the running for a lot of people.
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My son is a Davidson sophomore & absolutely loves it there. He is moderate & finds that most kids are also moderate – or at least not over the top on one spectrum or the other. It’s a lot more conservative than his California HS & more liberal than W&L or Richmond, probably. It’s funny that some think Davidson is isolated because I wouldn’t consider a suburb of Charlotte to be such – he actually ruled out W&L & a few upsate NY LACs because they were in the middle of nowhere. Just this past week, he & some friends went into Charlotte to the Hornets game – it’s only a 25 min. drive. He’s also been to a Panthers’ game & a concert at the outdoor amphitheatre/venue, so there are tons of things to do close by.
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My daughter is a freshman at Davidson and LOVES IT. I’m extremely impressed with the level of work and interaction with professors. She is extremely liberal and all of her friends are as well. It definitely leans left. On the class IG page, almost every freshman had pronouns identified on their profile, if that’s an indication. She also has a very diverse friend group, which is so refreshing to see. We couldn’t be happier with the school, and all of the kids we’ve known to go there are insanely loyal to their alma mater.
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Seems almost like the above two posts are describing different schools. One asserts that Davidson is moderate & much more conservative than his son’s California high school, while the other states that Davidson College “leans left” & has extreme liberals.
Interesting observations. At one time,Davidson definitely conservative.
Davidson College has almost 1,850 undergraduate students.
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I have a son in Richmond. There tend to be some contradictory opinions of the school. One is that it is filled with kids from the generally liberal Northeast, but it is also too conservative; according to my kid and what I have observed as a parent, The Richmond student body sits overall left of center but not a liberal bubble.
We are from the Northeast, and part of the appeal of Richmond was to get a little outside our region. IMO I think it is healthy and maybe more woke to be in an environment where most people don’t all share the same opinions. My kid has a core group of friends that are right, left, and in the middle, and they couldn’t possibly be better friends.
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For what it’s worth, listing pronouns has been mainstream at most selective universities for a couple years (for instance, it was “regular” at Wake Forest 5-6 years ago and Wake is definitely NOT woke nor liberal.) Kids at these schools think it’s “normal”, even the non-liberal ones.
Sure, you don’t find that at private evangelical colleges but using the correct pronoun when you’re not sure (is that Hamza listed a he or a she? What about AnhLee I’m supposed to work with?) is seen as a common courtesy. it’s got nothing with being “right”, “left”, or “in the middle”… Some find the “guessing” that old folks (ie., us) used to do very awkward 
So, unless a quarter of the listed kids identify with “they”, we can’t derive any meaning in terms of political leaning from the fact Davidson’s students list their pronouns.
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hear, hear! I work with someone named Jean who got a lot of grief once the pronouns went up on the email signature but honestly- it’s not hard to pronounce, it’s not “foreign”, but folks seemed to freak out that a professional in the workplace was specifying “these are my preferred pronouns”. Is it “Jean the girl” (people actually asked that) or “Jean from France”.
It’s not “woke” to be courteous. It’s just courteous.
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Thank you for the responses. I’m thinking that Davidson probability is middle to slightly left of middle on the woke spectrum? Nothing like a Oberlin or a Middleburry or a Grinnell, if you know those schools?
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No, it’s not going to be like Oberlin or Grinnell. What in particular are you concerned about? Too woke, or not woke enough?
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Yes I think middle to slightly left of middle is a good description. Long years ago it was a male only school and you still see some vestiges in how there are more fraternities than sororities, etc.
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Too woke. Don’t want a place where all students must be super left wing or remain silent. Don’t like schools where there is a lack of tolerance for different viewpoints.
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Davidson isn’t a bastion of liberalism and social justice warriors, etc… I think up until fairly recently, it was seen as being a bit more conservative. It’s not as liberal as some other LACs. As long as you can get along with people with different points of view, you’ll be fine.
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Just to be clear - I’m not even conservative. But I believe in tolerance for competing viewpoints.
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You are brave, my friend. Hold on…you’re about to get an earful.
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