First Rough Draft: Midlife Crisis at 167

Bishop’s searches for a new identity through rose-tinted binoculars

Somewhere above the Valentine on Queen Street, there hangs a poster.

The poster, which predates the apartment’s tenants by nearly two decades, ponders, “How should you choose a university?”

Below the text are two purple porcupines, one with longer eyelashes and a pink bow in its quills, nuzzling adorably, with tiny red hearts fluttering between their noses. And below them, the answer:

“Very carefully…”

That used to work. In 1970, that was good enough for Bishop’s to recruit with: porcupines.

But today, this university finds it rather a struggle to define itself – both inwardly and outwardly.

“What is Bishop’s?” We all have our stories; we’ve told them to friends over beers, to parents over dinner, and countless other times and places. But what do they amount to?

Some view this place as a Dionysian playground, where all you need to make it from Monday to next Monday is a bit of madness and a lot of wine.

Others come here because of the romantically quaint town: two traffic lights, a public library smaller than most fast food joints, and the arches that grace the path to the Promised Land.

Others still land in the borough for what would seem to be the most obvious reason: to gain an education – be it in business, in the arts, or just in the way of the world.

How do you bottle that? How can a school of nearly 2000 students with scattershot interests and lifestyles condense all their experiences into a razor-sharp slogan that leaps off the page and grabs potential students by the collar?

The recruitment office is working on that. Some prospects are promising (“Become You”), while others fail to incite any excitement (“Prerequisite for life,” which thankfully was never used).

Of course, for the recruitment office to sell Bishop’s, Bishop’s must first find out what it’s all about.

This year alone, The Campus has run three articles – one by an editor, and two which were unsolicited – decrying the lack of spirit and involvement at the university.

The authors cite several different symptoms of this declining spirit, but they all targeted the sparsely populated rowdy sections at this year’s games – football, basketball, everything. This is reinforced by dwindling attendance at Happy Hour and other events across campus.

These three writers say that Bishop’s is losing itself. That may be true, but having landed in Lennoxville in September 2007, I’m too young to judge. However, what if it’s part of a broader cultural shift?

In all aspects – academics, administration, student life – Bishop’s is in the midst of a strange transitional phase, where we’re out of the woods but still hunting for a compass.

Defining ourselves in the woods was easy, if inaccurate: a mismanaged school for misbehaved students. But without a certain Principal (with whom we wisely and euphemistically “parted company”) and with the number of couch fires per capita spiraling downward, we can no longer rely on the labels of days gone by.

Which leaves us here. Bishop’s can sustain and grow its student population easily enough; it is often said that the university’s students and alumni are its best ambassadors – and that’s absolutely true. But it might not be enough.

Nobody knows where Bishop’s is going. There are certain reliable indicators: enrollment is going up. Deficits are diminishing. No labor strife in the offing. Numerous athletes are gaining national recognition. It’s all good news.

But good news only gets you so far; eventually, Bishop’s needs to decide what it is. Is it a primarily undergraduate, liberal arts institution? A Pabst Paradise? A school of business, or of education, or of the humanities? None of the above?

We’ll see. This university, which we call home for perfectly legitimate reasons, will find its way again. But where the path leads us might not even remotely resemble where we’ve been, or where we are now.

That is no reason to look toward the future with trepidation. Bishop’s, though a tremendous place as-is, should never settle for the status quo, be it in academics or in student life.

The next few years may be some of the most formative that Bishop’s has seen in decades. It would be a shame to see this opportunity wasted on what we are rather than what we may be.