Sticker Booklet

“It’s really good to hear about someone doing well.” Megan, a faculty member from Wells College says, and I’m glad. I tell her about writing, book arts, my new job, my house family, and more small blessings I’m excited to share. I’m thankful she wants to hear about the good things, because she so patiently made room for my not-good things during my time as her student.

My alma mater closed last month. I lost my job along with a community I believed in and an institution I leant my trust to. Bundle this with a short list of summer sad-adversaries and tri-weekly nightmares and I’ve been left with a permanent scraped-palm feeling. I wash my hands a lot right now. I’m thankful for the large bottles of lavender Dr. Bronner’s that I dilute into a blue-green foaming soap dispenser. I rarely have to wait for the water from my bathroom tap to heat (a consistent novelty, even a year in) so I get to wash my hands with warm water every time.

To reference my sentiment from this time last year, this life still isn’t as challenging as undergrad. I know I tempt god with a sentence like that, but I can’t be bothered to beat about the bush. Maybe if administration at Wells had any clue how to reach the 53% of students that received Pell Grants in the ’22-’23 academic year (nces.ed.gov), or if they were interested in changing the structure of liberal arts institutions that prevents working class individuals from receiving an education without being demoralized and exhausted, they may have evolved to survive the national spread of closures. At the very least, they would have closed after fighting the good fight instead of hanging on the coat-tails of never-sister-school Cornell¹, who “never returned our [Wells’] calls” in regards to the closure.

After the initial closure Wells College highlighted Manhatanville University as a “Legacy Teach-out Partner.” Beyond being legally grey, this decision exemplifies how out-of-touch both the board and cabinet were with disadvantaged students. A factor as simple (and accessible) as distance can make my point. According to a study from The Journal of College Admissions that is available for free online, college students whose parents earn less than $30,000 yearly tend to travel around 60 miles away from home for college. According to Google Maps the trip from Wells College to Manhatanville University is 250 miles. Even those students living a full 60 miles from Wells in the direction of Manhattanville would need to travel 190 miles away from home to attend the “preferred teach-out partner.” Notably, the same study shows that students who travel around 150 miles for college have parents who earn over $100,000 yearly. This salary range, over $100,000 yearly, reflects the estimated salaries of current cabinet members. Perhaps an issue as simple as travel access was overlooked because it would not be an issue for Cabinet members’ own children and loved ones. Perhaps it was assumed, as it so often was at Wells, that low-income students would take the less preferred option and just deal.

I’ll take a break here to say I love Wells. I loved my education more than anything and I was willing to scrap for it. I certainly wish I didn’t have to. I love my faculty and coworkers and peers and I wish every night they find good stable communities to call home after this exodus.

At Wells I had the privilege of being white, fem, and really good at just dealing. My partner Sól, disabled, brown, and Pell-eligible, was not as lucky. They came to Wells from a low-income immigrant family. At Wells Sól struggled with a lack of access to addiction and mental health care in addition to financial issues², resulting in myself becoming their primary caretaker, largely unacknowledged by my community and entirely unsupported by the institution. A mishandled Title IX case, drawn out long after the promised 60 day resolution, was the final straw.

“I couldn’t care about passing my classes.” Sól says. “My dream of studying wasn’t possible any more.”

They dropped out after the spring semester of 2023, and mercifully were unaffected by the college closure. After reading more stories shared on social media by brown and black students at Wells post-closure, I can confidently say the challenges they faced were not unique.

I don’t think Wells was alone in it’s position serving record numbers of underprivileged students without the inner framework to sustain the work. While I am willing to honor the good intentions of admitting these students, doing so without following through to return the good-faith investments we make in money, time, and youth is unacceptable. No one will be held accountable in this situation, the college is closed. The more woo-hooey Wellsian inside me would like to make peace by leaving an offering with Minerva, but Minerva is beheaded, and Truth burnt in the Main fire.

I’m at a loss for options. I’ll remind you that this is a blog post, and not an essay, so I don’t feel indebted to you, as a reader, to provide a rousing or positive conclusion. But, I’ll share what I hope for (and have not yet found). I hope someone in a position with more authority than mine notices the unique relationship small liberal arts colleges have with underprivileged students; one where the door is opened although the hallway to it is a cold mountain. I hope they find a way to preserve the breadth and beauty of liberal arts education while deconstructing the systems built for white upper-middle class students and inventing something good. I hope they do it soon, so there is someplace nice to send my kids.

1. Just 19% of Cornell’s undergraduate students received Pell Grants in the ’22-’23 school year (nces.ed.gov). ↩︎
2. Sól shares that they tried every avenue and and attended countless meetings. Staff were both unable to help them and unwilling to admit it. Wells’ is, in part, built on hopeful persistence, even to its detriment. We are both still thankful for the staff who put in the effort they could to help. ↩︎