UMass Boston Spring 2014
Volume I, Issue I
Cover art by Baylie Edwards
3
9
11
18
ADHD: This is Your Brain
on Pop Culture Psychology
Teacher, what’s a
prostitute?
Social Inequality in Higher
Education
UMass Boston is the
most diverse campus in
Massachusetts
Reflections on Teaching
20
21 Diamond’s Are A Girl’s
Best Friend
Poetry and Politics:Seamus
Heaney Visits UMass
Wheeling West Virginia
23
25
29 Jason “Jay” Lamanna Tribute
Editor in Chief
Lucas Goren
Managing Editor
Kelly Danckert
Contributors
Baylie Edwards
Ben Spencer
Caroline Kim
Oliver Marshall
Nathaniel Hunt
Ameera I. Skandarani
Lloyd Schwartz
Nicole Bousquet
Rajini Srikanth
Julie Steiner
Matthew Charity
Eric Gouvin
Elizabeth Bussiere
Bruce Miller
Beth Cohen
Don’t Like Us on Facebook (A letter from the Editor).
It’s gotten a little loud in here. By “here” I mean the worldwide web. By the “worldwide web” I
mean the impossibly intricate conglomeration of social-media, blogs, news-sites, tweets, listicles,
cat gifs, and, finally, the targeted advertisements that keep this shortsighted beast trundling
along. Oh, and by “loud” I mean sonically mute, in the sense that I cannot hear a peep of this
kerfuffle. It’s not like plenty of noise isn’t being made, but the quiet observance that characterizes internet use has redefined the very definition of “noise.” Noise was once a sonic assault that
led your grandma to violently bang the ceiling with a brooms’ pointy end, now it’s a maelstrom
of provocative headlines and suggestive pictures to go along with them. Are you distracted yet? I
know that I am; I can’t form a single thought amidst this noise.
Perhaps you, like me, feel assailed by the veritable loudspeaker that the internet has become; by
the competing voices raising the digital decibel levels to deafening heights. Perhaps you, like me,
find it hard to know what you really think amongst the tweet-fights, political swipes, or the “10
Ways This Website is Trying To Get You To Bite.”
Perhaps. I mean, I don’t know.
It seems writ large – it seems obvious – that there should be a place where one can contemplate
ideas quietly. Some place where one is alone with his or her thoughts and the authors’ words. In
starting Writ Large I hoped to create a place where a reader could enjoy some of UMass Boston’s
finest ideas in solitude. The quality ideas that originate at UMass Boston, and their unique creators, deserve an appropriate medium to be contemplated in; one that you can fold under your
arm, walk with to the harbor, and read on a grassy hill.
I hope you enjoy our inaugural issue. Perhaps you’ll find a quiet place to read it and feel compelled to join us in making some noise.
Lucas Goren
Editor in Chief
editor@writlargemag.org
ADHD This is Your
Brain on Pop Culture Psychology
by Benjamin Spencer
“I’m so
ADD.”
The phrase carries far more
meaning than people might
think. Up until 10-15 years
ago, this phrase was barely in
existence. ADHD and ADD have
become a pop-culture obsession.
The cause? More than likely, an increase in diagnosis and medication treatment of the disorder, coupled with broadcast Direct to Consumer Pharmaceutical
Advertising (DTCPA). College students are
among a large group who use the stimulants
typically prescribed to treat ADHD—often
non-medically and without a prescription.
While this frustrates me personally, as these
students gain an unfair advantage over me by
augmenting their study skills with drugs, I
can put aside my resentment for long enough
to examine why students feel the need to use
performance-enhancing chemicals to com3 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
pete academically, and what in
our culture and our
attitudes about pharmaceuticals has changed
to give this sort of behavior a proverbial green
light. In this article, I will briefly discuss what
ADHD is and what goes into really diagnosing the disorder, and how the popularity of the
disorder, coupled with our high-achieving culture, might be leading college students down a
slippery slope.
A simplified prototypical description
of ADHD can be found in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth
Edition (DSM-5). It cites the inattentive factors of ADHD as having difficulty organizing
tasks, being prone to misplacing things needed
to complete tasks, and being easily distracted
by extraneous stimuli. Some of the symptoms
of impulsivity consist of feeling restless, having
difficulty waiting one’s turn, talking excessively,
and intruding on other people’s conversations or activities. The primarily inattentive
type is often referred to as ADD (American
Psychiatric Association, 2013). In order to be
diagnosed properly, there are factors that need
to be considered and ruled out. According to
Dr. Anthony Rao, a prominent Boston area
Cognitive Behavioral Psychologist, “ADHD is
complex and difficult to accurately diagnose.
Many things mimic its symptoms, such as vision and hearing problems, learning disorders,
anxiety, sleep problems, and stress at home or
school” (Rao, 2011). The problem with self-diagnosis is that many symptoms that we hear of
as being the hallmarks of ADD or ADHD are
also prone to come about because of societal
demands, or poor or underdeveloped coping
skills. I advise students who think they might
actually have the disorder see a psychologist to
be properly diagnosed.
The etiology, or origin, of the disorder is not fully understood. Because of the
prominence of medication use to treat the
disorder, it is commonly understood as a more
or less purely biological disorder resulting
from chemical imbalances in the brain. The
research on the disorder is mixed. Some studies cite environmental factors, while others do
argue sole biological factors—going so far as
to isolate possible gene traits that might cause
the disorder. More than likely, its etiology is
nestled somewhere between both of these. The
predominant theory of most psychological
disorders is the diathesis-stress model, wherein
individuals have a genetic vulnerability to a
certain disorder, and aspects of their environment or experience have the propensity to
activate these genetic markers.
The use of stimulant medication to treat
symptoms of ADHD has been a hot topic for
several decades, and its popularity in the area
of both culture and science has only grown
in the past decade. The most common drugs
used to treat the medication are methylphenidate (known more commonly as Ritalin),
and amphetamine with dextroamphetamine
mixed salts, known by its brand name Adderall. Adderall, in particular, has caught not only
the attention of college students, psychiatrists,
and those suffering from ADHD, but also that
of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA). While
Adderall affects the neurons in roughly the
same manner as Ritalin, it is a more powerful
drug, and is thus more often abused or taken
without a prescription. It is theorized that
these drugs work with the dopamine receptors in the brain, prolonging the post-synaptic
neurochemical mediation. In simpler terms,
the neurons in one’s brain are exposed to the
dopamine neurotransmitter for longer (Patrick
& Markowitz, 1997). Dopamine governs attention, energy, and pleasure. Because of this,
stimulant medications—especially Adderall—
are often a preferable recreational drug for
those who want to have fun, but would rather
not buy street drugs. Between 2000 and 2004,
prescriptions for ADHD medications tripled
for those aged 20-30 (Loe, 2006). Drugs like
Molly (MDMA) and Methamphetamine work
with the same neurotransmitters. SAMHSA,
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 4
concerned about rates of abuse, released a 2009
report showing that college students who took
Adderall non-medically had a higher incidence
of abusing painkillers and other drugs (Akinbami, Liu, Pastor, & Reuben, 2011). Those who
find themselves under extreme stress are more
likely to self-medicate. While most people I
know who use Adderall during test time have
no trouble putting it down—and often prefer
to—once finals are over with, those with addictive personalities should use caution in
deciding to use stimulants to help them study.
It seems that the use of stimulants could lead
to addiction in some students in an attempt to
mediate their moods.
While the abovementioned information
tells us who is using stimulant medication and
why, it doesn’t explain how or why the phenomenon has reached the proportion it has.
For a more relatable example, let us consider
a typical fulltime student at UMass Boston.
Four classes translate into roughly 40 hours
per week between in-class time, homework,
studying, and papers. Given that most of our
students work, let us consider that this student is also working a fulltime job. This constitutes another 40 hours per week. Consider
the amount of time that goes into minimal
self-care—grocery shopping, doing laundry,
showering in the morning, social interaction
(which should not be considered an extraneous
activity)—and we can add anywhere between
20-30 hours depending on his level of hygiene
and social interaction. Let us also consider
that s/he sleeps six hours per night during the
week, and “catches up” by sleeping eight hours
per night on the weekends. This adds up to
somewhere between 146-156 hours per week.
By this count (given one week consists of 168
5 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
hours), the average self-sustaining college student has somewhere between 12-22 hours per
week to try to unwind from the stress of their
crammed lifestyle. What happens when finals
week comes about? It is not difficult to see why
a student might look for a pick-me-up.
Many studies, although fewer than I
wish, have been conducted in search for reasons behind non-medical stimulant use, and
researchers are not blind as to the pressure
college students are under. Loe (2006) cites
Conrad and Potter (2000) in describing the
reasons for self-administered stimulant use:
“Students turn to prescription medication to
acquire a greater sense of control of their behavioral and mental inabilities—largely writ as
underperformance. For students who are identified by themselves or others as suffering from
ADD-like symptoms, their concerns may lie
in their ‘disorganization, irresponsibility, procrastination, and inability to complete tasks,’”
words we often use to scold ourselves when
giving our overworked brains the break they
sorely need. I can definitely identify with this,
especially around finals time, when completing the amount of work I have, coupled with
my responsibilities, seems like a mathematical
impossibility.
The societal pressures under which college students are put cause acute anxiety—especially
during test time. Anxiety can cause—among
other symptoms—inability to focus, and an
inability to sit still, symptoms that might make
someone “feel ADD”. We are not just doing
homework, we are preparing. Many of us are
plagued by worries about competing for jobs
after we graduate, or—like myself—about getting into the graduate program of my choice. I
know for sure that my parents, both of whom
graduated from graduate programs, did not
I believe this attitude is born from blanexperience college like this. In fact, this is not
ket promises made by the pharmaceutical
the experience of most from the baby-boom
industry. Indeed, this is the same industry that
generation. Many parents lament the pressure reassures you that although you get debilitating
that college students are under nowadays. Our heartburn when you eat buffalo wings, if you
culture has shifted into an ultra-competitive
take a pill, you can once again enjoy the delihigh-achieving state. Winning is everything,
cious food that your body is rejecting. There
whether at school or at work. The consequenc- are medications for shyness, baldness, short
es of “losing” are more than financial. The loss stature, being overweight, being too sleepy
of social acceptance by others has become just during the day or too energetic at night. The
as important.
same industry that gave birth to “Mother’s
The pressure on students is so astronomical
little helper” in the 1950s has once again reasthat, according to a 2004 National College
sured folks that a miraculous treatment for the
Health Assessment
limited attention
survey of 13,500 college “Indeed, this is the same industry that span of humans is
students, nearly 50% of
available to nearly
reassures you that although you get
college students report- debilitating heartburn when you eat
all who ask. Our
ed debilitating deprescountry has bebuffalo
wings,
if
you
take
a
pill,
you
sion, and 94% said they
come pill-happy,
can
once
again
enjoy
the
delicious
felt overwhelmed (Loe,
particularly in
2006). The concern over food that your body is rejecting.”
the last 15 years.
the declining mental
I believe a good
health of students in the wake of increased
portion of the acceptance of non-prescribed
pressure is of extreme concern to psychologists medication as a solution to study problems is
and mental health workers, particularly those
directly correlated with a pop-culture obseswho work in university counseling centers.
sion with ADHD, a phenomenon that became
Kitzrow (2003) cites Pledge, et al. (1998) in
much more prevalent when pharmaceutical
reporting, “[a] recent analysis of initial intake
companies began broadcasting direct-to-condata gathered from students who sought coun- sumer advertisements in 1997. Does this seem
seling services at a large university found that
a little too farfetched? Let us look at some data.
‘the level of severity of these concerns is much Direct to Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertisgreater than the traditional presenting probing (DTCPA) was not illegal prior to 1997, but
lems of adjustment and individuation that were the rules on what needed to be included in the
seen for college students in counseling center
advertisement were far more stringent. Pharresearch from the 1950s and 1960s through the maceutical companies therefore advertised
early 1980s.’” Amid this storm, there is a paral- primarily in print publications because they
lel attitude that despite the increased demands had to include an exhaustive list of side effects,
on time and energy, students can still compete potential contraindications, and statistical
at optimum performance.
efficacy, and thus it did not make sense finanWrit Large April 1st, 2014 6
cially or from a marketing standpoint to advertise on broadcast television. In 1997, however,
the pharmaceutical industry finally swayed
the Food and Drug Administration to relax
its requirements on DTCPA. In 1995, DTCPA
spending was $340 million; in 1998, it tripled
to $1.2 billion. By 2006-2007, pharmaceutical
companies were spending over $5 billion per
year in DTCPA. The trend of self-medical decision-making seems to have increased alongside
this trend. The rates of ADHD diagnoses in the
United States have increased at a rate that is
roughly in positive correlation with that of the
amount spent in DTCPA(Akinbami, Liu, Pastor, & Reuben, 2011). With that, the rate of Adderall usage by college students has increased.
Survey results from 2004 indicate that 25% of
college students have taken Ritalin or Adderall,
and 75% of them did so in order to augment
their study performance (Loe, 2006).
In Europe, while the pharmaceutical
firms have lobbied heavily for DTCPA, the
European Union denied them access to print
or broadcast advertising by a vote of 22-27.
The United States and New Zealand remain the
only countries allowing it (Ventola, 2011). It is
not surprising that our country’s college students take advantage of nearly open-access to
medication so willingly. If we look at the issue
on an even broader scale, we should consider
that, unlike European countries, our citizens
are not guaranteed amenities such as health
coverage. There is a strong urge to do as well as
possible, and to graduate and therefore make
enough money to self-sustain comfortably, and
also be able to put away money for retirement
(our social security system falls far behind
that of our European counterparts, and our
senior citizens often find themselves choosing
7 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
between medication and food). I, for one, am
watching my own parents struggle as they try
to maintain with one income and social security.
To be fair, the problem has been brewing
for longer than the last 15 years. The United
States’ appetite for pharmaceuticals was first
fed shortly before the turn of the 20th century.
During this time, there was an epidemic of
“hard” drug abuse and addiction in the US.
Cocaine and opium were frequent main ingredients in many different tonics—from cure-alls
(Coca-Cola, originally), to teething tonics, to
cold remedies. The government stepped in
with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and
the Harrison Act of 1914, banning the tonics
from drugstore shelves and making it so doctors needed to be licensed to prescribe them
(Conis, 2007).
Our hunger, however, continues. With
the level of pressure to succeed and compete
higher than ever, we have never been more
famished. The use of stimulants among college
students is not the problem, but rather a symptom of the ailment this country has developed
over the last century. As a society that prides
itself on self-efficacy, the demands we have
placed on ourselves almost command that we
look outside our biological limits to go longer
and run faster than ever before. This is the part
of the article where I would I would like to
offer some sort of optimistic solution. Unfortunately, our country’s drive to exceed yesterday’s expectations has increased in the wake of
the economic downturn. Companies, having
tighter budgets, are more selective in who they
choose to work for them, and maintaining
one’s position at a company (let alone getting
promoted) entails putting in extra hours and
performing ahead of the next college graduate,
whose application is sitting in a pile on HR’s
desk. This means graduating at the top of one’s
class, and developing marketable skills. For
those hoping to enter the biomedical or psychology research field, this means graduating
with high marks and gaining unique experience in a research lab on top of their academic
work—all to get into graduate school. While on the eve of graduating some of
the highest achieving college students ever, we
are also graduating some of the most psychologically disturbed students as well. This trend
of adhering to ever-increasing standards will
reach its apex at some point, and our colleges
and universities will then have to deal with
those consequences. Until then, expect to see
References
Akinbami, L. J., Liu, X., Pastor, P. N., & Reuben, C. A. (2011). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Among
Children Aged 5–17 Years in the United States, 1998–2009. Centers for Disease COntrol and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5 (5th
ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Conis, E. (2007, October 29). Illicit drugs were once called tonics. Los Angeles Times .
Kitzrow, M. A. (2003). The Mental Health Needs of Today’s College Students: Challenges and Recommendations.
NASPA , 41 (1), 167-181.
Loe, M. (2006). Medically-Disciplined Bodies: College Students “Pharming” to Perform in the Classroom. Conference Papers - American Sociological Association (pp. 1-25). Montreal: American Sociological Association.
Patrick, K. S., & Markowitz, J. S. (1997). Pharmacology of Methylphenidate, Amphetamine Enantiomers and
Pemoline in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Human Psychopharmacology , 12, 527-546.
Rao, A. (2011, March 17). The Confusing Picture of ADHD. Retrieved November 20, 2013, from Dr. Anthony
Rao: http://anthonyrao.com/articles/?p=43
Ventola, C. L. (2011). Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising; Therapeutic or Toxic? Pharmacy &
Therapeutics , 36 (10), 669-674.
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 8
Teacher, what’s a prostitute?
Illustration by Frederick Richard Pickersgill
by Caroline Kim
My name is Caroline Kim. I am a Christian and I am a feminist. I’m not sure which one
of those identity markers is more controversial, but I’m aware that both are loaded with lots
of negative connotations and stereotypes that make it them obfuscate the human person who
labels herself as such. Even more confusing is the conjunction that joins the two positions; I
think that a lot of people would’ve expected a “but” to join the two thoughts.
I have to admit; it can be confusing for me, too. I am a Christian and I am also a feminist. I
can’t be one or the other; I just can’t. But sometimes Christianity and the feminism that I belong to can make for uncomfortable bedfellows. Actually, that’s great material for a sitcom --can
you imagine, say, Martin Luther sharing a bed with Margaret Cho? I would watch that show.
9 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
My feminism and Christian values were
challenged one Sunday morning. I teach the
fifth graders at my church’s Sunday school,
and even though I think about all of them
throughout the week I tend to procrastinate
when it comes to preparing for the coming lesson. That morning I looked at the lesson plan,
on Joshua 2, and saw that the week’s handout
mentioned a prostitute.
I got a little worried.
The prostitute of the passage is Rahab,
who is tasked with hiding two Israelite spies.
She and her family are rewarded by not being
killed in the sacking of their city as committed
by the Israelites. The lesson plan highlighted
the Israelites’ deeds more than Rahab’s daring,
but did involve questions about what she did
and how she helped them. Nowhere in the lesson plan was there any mention of anticipating
ten-year-olds acting like typical ten-year-olds
and asking for definitions to words they don’t
know.
I sat with this for a minute or two, then,
Internet-dependent millennial that I am,
Googled the phrase “how to explain prostitution to children.” My brain might have vomited
a little after that. Then I came across a blog
post by a fellow Sunday school teacher who
was confronted with the same scenario. She
chose focus on Rahab in terms of her redemption: that she was not defined by a profession
that made her sin, but that she trusted in the
Israelites and that one of her descendants was
Jesus. A deft change of focus from her past
deeds to her future accomplishments.
I was slightly dissatisfied with this explanation. I’m glad for the bit about not letting
Rahab’s profession define her, but who is to say
that it was her chosen profession? Nowhere
does it allow for the possibility that prostitu-
tion was a choice for her. So little information
is given about her; the passage reveals only that
she is a prostitute and lived in a part of Jericho
that was conveniently located for the Israelite
spies. Chances are that she didn’t have that
much of a choice in terms of her profession.
Even today I’m dubious of the claim that some
people make when they say they chose to be
sex workers. Often, the ones who do make
this statement are able to speak for themselves.
Not all prostitutes are able to do so. To say that
some prostitutes decided to perform sex can
distract from the fact that so many women and
girls throughout the world have not been afforded that position.
Aside from my own feelings on the
topic, I had to keep in mind the responsibilities that I vowed to uphold when I became a
Sunday school teacher in the first place. In that
setting, whatever I do is supposed to be representative of the church’s mission and views, of
God’s will and not my own. The oft-repeated
phrase “What would Jesus do?” never before
gave me such difficulty. And so I prayed and
meditated over this issue.
My final decision on the matter was to
not be the one to make the decision. I would
play it by ear. In the event that the question
came up, the right words would come out of
my mouth. My students were a lot savvier than
I often gave them credit for, so if I gave them a
definition that was honest and without a value
judgment, they would come up with explanations on their own. And I would leave it at that.
Ultimately, all that energy went unused, as the
kids read on right past the passage and were
more fixated on the fact that I hadn’t brought a
better snack. Go figure.
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 10
Social
INEQUALITY
EDUCATION
and Class Reproduction Through Higher
by Oliver Marshall
“The American Dream,” is the overarching ideology that pervades most all facets of
American society. It is our spin on capitalism:
it serves as an explanation for our economy
and a motivator for our labor force. It has even
become synonymous with our American definition of democracy, and is claimed by many to
be one of the central values that the forefathers
founded the country upon.1 At the heart of the
myth is the unfaltering belief that hard work
and dedication will be rewarded with material
gains and social mobility, or “rags to riches.”
The simple truth is that hard work alone will
not result in upward mobility, and there are
many systems in place in American society
that work to prevent even the hardest workers
from making any progress to escaping their
rags. A child born into the bottom income
quintile has a 50.7 percent chance of remaining in that quintile as an adult, and a child
born into the top income quintile has a 40.7
percent chance of remaining in that quintile as
an adult, while the chances for either of them
trading places is below 5 percent in both cases
(although with the poor child’s chances being
much lower).2 It is hard to escape the evidence
that social mobility is far from the guarantee
that society touts it to be, in fact the statistics
generally show that a person will remain in the
class they were born into (this is especially true
for the higher tiers, however downward mobility does become a reality for many in the lower
tiers).
So the question arises, why, in spite of
the evidence, does the American dream live
on? The answer to which is vastly complex as
it can be approached from multiple perspectives (from politics to media to corporate
business to socialization in American society),
and cannot be traced to a single source, but
is created out of the combination of cultures
that we identify as American society. The truth
is, in fact, that for the most part, these elements that serve to maintain the myth of rags
to riches, do so because this ideology actually
serves to maintain the status quo, and provide
an explanation for the economic system used
in America. Capitalism, despite the promise
of opportunity of social mobility, does in fact
operate to promote social stratification and
class reproduction (as is demonstrated in the
statistics).
The focus of this paper will be on one particular contributor to the inequalities: the unlikely
candidate of higher education. Higher education has been championed as “the great equalizer of the conditions of men,” and yet, as will
be explained, has not only failed in this service
but has also served to maintain the unequal
nature of American capitalist democracy.3
Presented here are several studies that will
explain the ways in which higher education is
inherently not universally accessible, and how
it allows for and promotes class reproduction.
Higher education, as defined in the Report of the President’s Commission on Higher
Education, 1947, should aim towards totally
equalized opportunity; “an educational system
in which at no level…will a qualified individual in any part of the country encounter an
insuperable economic barrier to the attainment
of the kind of education suited to his aptitudes
and interests.”4 The report calls for access to
higher education for all, for the betterment of
the individuals and for the democratic society.
The implication of this is that every individual
2 Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, The Inheritance of
Inequality (http://www.umass.edu/preferen/gintis/intergen.pdf, 2002), 5.
3 Horace Mann, 12th Annual Report to the Massachusetts State Board of Education, 1848.
4 Lester F. Goodchild & Harold Wechsler, The History
of Higher Education (Needham Heights, MA : Simon
& Schuster Custom Publ., 1997), 768.
1 The Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org,
2012).
Writ Large Apvril 1st, 2014 12
has an obligation to pursue a higher education by 7 percent over the period, youth from the
in order to improve the democratic society. In highest income quartile increased by much
response, society should make higher educamore than enrollment of youth in the poortion accessible to all individuals in order to
est quartile. Combined with the observation
facilitate this. However, studies have shown
- that the enrollment in the poorest income
that, over 60 years after the Report, access to
quartile actually was greatest in vocational and
higher education is not equally accessible. Fac- two-year colleges - their enrollment in fourtors such as high school education, household year colleges actually decreased. The disparity
income, level of parental education, and others in four-year college enrollment between the
still have a bearing of whether or not a student two income quartiles increased over the pewill be able to successfully enroll in and comriod (from 26 percent in 1980 to 38 percent in
plete college.
1992).7
Robert Haveman and Timothy Smeed
The total college enrollment since the
ing define the role of the American university
1940’s has continued to increase and shows no
as “a meritocratic filter between the economic sign of stopping, but the information presented
position of the families “in fact the statistics generally
by Haveman and Smeeding
in which children grow
give a negative connotation
show
that
a
person
will
remain
up and those children’s
to otherwise positive staeconomic position as in the class they were born into.” tistics. While at first glance
adults.”5 Merit, howthe recommendations of the
ever, as addressed by Haveman and Smeading, Truman Commission appear to have been folis comprised of elements (“ability, motivation, lowed, the desired goal may still be out of sight.
and preparedness”) that are “all linked to the
As the wealthier sectors of the population gain
6
economic position of the children’s families.”
an even stronger foothold in higher educaThe inequalities already present in society have tion, the poorer members of society appear to
an adverse effect on students such that their
becoming even more marginalized. Haveman
chances of success are significantly diminished and Smeeding summarize another similar
before they even enter college. Thus the equal
study, “the gaps between the attainment levels
access, as advocated in the Report, has not
of youth from the top and bottom deciles are
been realized, as it would appear that, from
even greater, suggesting a continuous relationbirth, students will be disadvantaged according ship between economic status and educational
to the income level of their parents.
attainment.”8
In their article, Haveman and Smeed
In his article, Do We Need More College
ing cite a study by David Ellwood and Thomas Graduates, William Beaver provides a similar
Kane in which the college enrollment between description of enrollment rates according to
1980 and 1992 was analyzed according to the
income level. However, he also presents even
income quartile of the students’ families. Almore shocking statistics on graduation rates:
though overall college enrollment increased
approximately 58 percent of college freshman
that begin a four year institution will earn a
5 Robert Haveman & Timothy Smeeding, “The Role of bachelor’s degree within 6 years, however, for
Higher Education in Social Mobility,” Future Of Chillow-income first generation college students,
dren 16, no. 2 (SocINDEX with Full Text, EBSCOhost
(accessed July 12, 2012)), 129.
6 Haveman & Smeeding, 129.
13 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
7 Haveman & Smeeding, 130.
8 Haveman & Smeeding, 132.
this rate was reduced to 11 percent.9 Even
when the difficulties surrounding acceptance
and enrollment into college are overcome,
those low-income students are ill equipped to
succeed in the college environment. One concept that provides an answer as to why these
students would face such difficulty succeeding,
despite having demonstrated ability during the
admissions process, is that of cultural capital.
Cultural capital is a command of “tastes
and perceptions,” just as economic capital is a
command of economic resources, and social
capital of relationships.10 This cultural capital
is a wealth that begins accumulating in childhood through the interactions between child
and parent. Beaver gives a perfect example of
this, citing studies showing that “children of
professional parents are exposed to many more
words than their lower class counterparts so
that by the age of three these children have
twice the vocabulary of the poorest children.”11
As a result, young adults entering college with
a higher level of cultural capital feel more at
ease in the university environment, without
even needing to realize the advantage they are
automatically afforded by their upbringing.
Wallace and Wolf explain the concept as presented by Pierre Bourdieu, “The ‘formal equality’ of competitive examination encourages
people to believe that they succeed-or fail-by
their own individual merit…The education
system can ‘ensure the perpetuation of privilege by the mere operation of its own internal
logic.’”12 Middle and upper class students succeed and see it as logical in accordance with
the cultural capital that they were brought up
9 William Beaver, “Do We Need More College Graduates.” Symposium: The Common Good (Springer Science + Business Media, LLC, 2010), 309.
10 Ruth A. Wallace & Alison Wolf, Contemporary Sociological Theory, 5th ed (NJ: Prentice Hall,
1999)111.
11 Beaver, 310.
12 Wallace & Wolf,112.
with. Lower class students are not nearly as
at ease with the system, and as a result have a
higher rate of attrition. All the while these outcomes, as a result of presence of the ideology,
are not acknowledged.
One of the primary facets of the American dream ideology is that of individual sovereignty, as expressed by the Students for a
Democratic Society: “We oppose…the doctrine of human incompetence because it rests
essentially on the modern fact that men have
been ‘competently’ manipulated into incompetence.” We are socialized by the ideology
to believe that we cannot be manipulated by
ideologies, and that we are consciously in control of our fate. Bourdieu explains that within
the university “It is the result of ‘innumerable
acts of evaluation’ whereby students-professors
bring into play ‘scholarly taxonomies – those
instruments for constructing reality.’…‘All successful socialization succeeds in making people
accomplices in their own fate.’”13 Neither
student, nor professor, is made aware (accept
through their own agency by the acknowledgement of the institutional systems) that they are
reinforcing and reproducing the social classes
that are present in the generation of the students’ parents.
Bourdieu gives the term habitus to apparatuses such as this in which “systems of
domination persist and reproduce themselves
without the conscious recognition by society’s members.” Higher education served as
a primary study of habitus for Bourdieu. In
Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, Bourdieu explains how the product of
“unconscious family socialization” was that the
“inheritors” (the children of the wealthy class)
were able to access the “codes” through which
the education was transmitted. Conversely, the
working-class students would find discomfort
in the educators, and instead would fall back
13 Wallace &Wolf p. 113
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 14
on the familiarity, or “objective probability,” of three, times as fast as the consumer price
attrition. Bourdieu explains that the cultural
index. While this means a higher cost for all
capital possessed by working class students
college students, it had a far greater effect on
will allow them “subtly imperfect mastery [of
low-income students. During this time the
linguistic and aesthetic norms of the dominant cost of attending college for students of highclass], which is always marked by the condiincome families increased from 5 to 6 percent
tions in which it was formed.” No matter their of household income, for students of lowintellectual ability, the primary socialization of income families this increase was from 42 to 60
the working-class students will prevent them
percent, a drastically greater change in the cost
from ever becomrelative to in“During
the
1980’s
and
1990’s,
college
tuition
ing completely
come. When
comfortable with increased at two, and sometimes three, times
in university,
the culture of the as fast as the consumer price index. While this cultural capihigher-class stutal can further
means
a
higher
cost
for
all
college
students,
it
dents, and thus endisadvantage
had
a
far
greater
effect
on
low-income
students.
”
couraging attrition
low-income
when discomfort is
students by
14
experienced in school.
drawing them to the counterproductive sub
Bourdieu’s argument of higher educacultures which may provide an environment
tion as a facilitator for the reproduction of class more concurrent with their level of cultural
is also seen in the reasons behind the lower
capital: Beaver cites a survey of 30,000-colenrollment and success rates of the students
lege freshman which found that “nearly onefrom low-income families. Firstly, the quality
half spent more time consuming alcohol than
of high school, and therefore the preparedness studying.”16 None of these events would necesof the students for college-level work, in lowsarily speak to the personal ability or integrity
income neighborhoods are generally signifiof the student, but would occur as a result of
cantly lacking. Haveman & Smeeding cite one the situation into which the student found his/
study that found that “only half of low-income herself born into.
high school graduates in 1992 who applied
This assertion is supported by Samuel Bowles
for admission to a four-year institution were
and Herbert Gintis’ study, The Inheritance of
‘minimally qualified’ to enroll.” The combinaInequality. In this study correlations between
tion of low quality high school preparation and five factors (IQ conditioned on schooling,
parents that are unfamiliar with the process of Schooling conditioned on IQ, Wealth, Personapplying to university then leaves qualified stu- ality and Race) and the heritability of income
dents without adequate planning or advising in were calculated. The results are hardly surprisorder to gain admission.15
ing given the arguments already presented
Next, the aspect of the cost of college is
here. IQ had little bearing, whereas Schooling
reached. During the 1980’s and 1990’s, coland Wealth had the highest correlations, Perlege tuition increased at two, and sometimes
sonality had a mild correlation, and Race had
a noticeable correlation. The conclusion of the
14 Paul DiMaggio, “Review Essay: On Pierre Bourstudy included the recognition that Schooling
dieu.” American Sociological Journal 84, no. 6 (Univerwas largely impacted by the level of schooling
sity of Chicago, 1979), 1464-1465.
15 Heaveman & Smeeding, 137.
15 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
16 Beaver, 310.
that the participants’ parents had received, and
thus an improvement in the parent’s level of
education would reduce the inheritability of
income, i.e. allowing for greater social mobility
of students whose parents had lower levels of
income.17
Finally, the job marketplace has become
such that applicants for positions are first
screened for a degree, as Beaver explains, “it is
often the case that employers will only consider
those applicants who have college degrees…
Consequently, non-degree holders do not
stand much of a chance of being hired.” The
system has become one in which it is no longer
the educated that are rewarded, but it is those
without degree that are penalized. A degree has
become standard, and so those that are unable
to navigate the admission, enrollment, and
completion of university, for any of the reasons
mentioned above, will be marginalized in the
labor pool. They will be unable to get jobs that
they may be capable of performing the duties
of, but without meeting the market standard of
having a college degree, they will be unable to
find employment.18
In The Inheritors, Bourdieu describes
how it becomes expected in the market for
everyone to possess a college degree. As educational accessibility is increased to the middle
and lower classes, the upper classes must
acquire even more qualifications in order to
maintain their place at the top of the social order. In order to remain competitive the middle
and lower classes follow suit:
When class fractions who previously made
little use of the school system enter the race for
academic qualifications, the effect is to force
the groups whose reproduction was mainly or
exclusively achieved though education to step
up their investments so as to maintain the relative scarcity of their qualifications and, conse17 Bowles & Gintis, 21-22.
18 Beaver, 309.
quently, their position in the class structure…
[This] generates a general and continuous
growth in the demand for education and an
inflation of academic qualifications.19
Due to the qualification inflation, as described
by Bourdieu, the attainment of a college degree
no longer confers with it a hope of upward social mobility, but is now a necessity to remain
at one’s original income level, a defense against
downward social mobility.
Here, we arrive at the unique case of
community college. As mentioned before, over
40 percent of students in the lowest income
quintile will enroll in community college.20
Portrayed as “democracy’s college,” the community college system offers the marginalized lower income students a point of entry to
higher education. In an environment where
qualification inflation absolutely necessitates
the possession of a degree, the community
college provides a passage through which
students, who would normally be unable to
afford, or unqualified to gain admission to
a four-year college, can transition to a fouryear college and, eventually, a college degree.
Not only do the community colleges serve the
underprivileged students, but they also serve
the four-year universities by “protecting them
from unqualified students.” This is what Brint
and Karabel refer to as the “sorting function” of
community colleges.21
The rather sinister picture of the community college portrayed by Brint and Karabel
is that the colleges were more intended as the
terminal destination for most of their students,
rather than point of access. They cite sources
that state the low rates of transfer students to
four-year colleges, and a focus on vocational19 Wallace & Wolf, 114.
20 Haveman & Smeeding, 139.
21 Steven Brint & Jerome Karabel, The Diverted
Dream (NY: Oxford University Press, 1989), 205209.
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 16
ization rather than higher education. Thus the
community college reaffirms the differentiation
within the educational system, and Bourdieu’s
theory of reproduction in education is confirmed.22
Though the American dream is presented as motivation to American society as
a means to overcome the economic disadvantages one may be born into, it carries with it
the risks of any capitalist ideology. It is by no
means a guarantee, and, because of the structure of the capitalist system, it is highly unlikely to be realized. The ideology of the American
dream is, at face value, a distraction from the
inequalities that are inherent in a capitalist society. At a deeper level it even acts to maintain
the capitalist status quo, as seen in the community colleges, by encouraging people to attempt
something that is, from the start, unattainable,
thus reinforcing the stratification.
Higher education as a whole is a great
institution, and it is hard to truly explain the
value of such learning. However, from a social
mobility standpoint, higher education does
not fulfill the role many perceive it to have. No
matter what the course taken, class reproduction is the most likely outcome; it is simply the
system that America operates within. Those
born into wealth are going to be born with
much greater advantages than those born without. The higher education system in America
reinforces this by being stratified, orientated to
the social capital of the higher classes, and, as
accessibility increases so does the inflation of
qualifications.
Social mobility is not impossible, it is just not
possible for all. A capitalist society cannot be
class-less otherwise it would not be able to
operate. What can be strived for, though, is an
improvement in the quality of life for those of
the lower classes. This can be done through
greater social education in the middle and up22 Brint & Karabel, 11.
17 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
per classes. Social stratification is inevitable,
but the more it is denied and ignored the worse
it becomes for those in the lower rungs of society. Social classes need to be acknowledged so
that some inequalities - not all, but some - can
be reduced.
References
Beaver, William. “Do We Need More College Graduates.” Symposium: The Common Good. Springer Science + Business Media, LLC, 2010.
Bowles, Samuel & Herbert Gintis, The Inheritance
of Inequality. University of Santa Fe, 2002. Retrieved
from: http://www.umass.edu/preferen/gintis/intergen.
pdf (accessed July 12, 2012)
Brint, Steven & Jerome Karabel, The Diverted Dream.
NY: Oxford University Press, 1989.
DiMaggio, Paul “Review Essay: On Pierre Bourdieu.”
American Sociological Journal 84, no. 6. University of
Chicago, 1979.
Goodchild, Lester F. & Harold Wechsler, The History
of Higher Education. Needham Heights, MA : Simon
& Schuster Custom Publ., 1997.
Haveman, Robert & Timothy Smeeding, “The Role of
Higher Education in Social Mobility,” Future Of Children 16, no. 2. SocINDEX with Full Text, EBSCOhost
(accessed July 12, 2012), 2006.
Horace Mann, 12th Annual Report to the Massachusetts State Board of Education, 1848. Retrieved from:
http://eca.state.gov/education/engteaching/pubs/
AmLnC/br16.htm (accessed July 12, 2012)
Wallace, Ruth A. & Alison Wolf, Contemporary Sociological Theory, 5th ed. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
The Heritage Foundation, 2012. Retrieved from: http://
www.heriatage.org (accessed July 12, 2012)
UMass Boston Is the Most Diverse Campus
In Massachusetts. Here’s Why That Matters
To Me.
by Nathaniel Hunt
My hometown has a problem with race. Its
main problem is that it doesn’t have a problem with race. Eugene, Oregon thinks of itself
as a haven for open people, and it’s one of the
whitest places I’ve ever seen. Demographically
speaking, white people are such a majority that
they make up 90.64% of the population. Many
people of other races are more or less invisible—often relegated to service jobs. But ask
anyone from Eugene and they’ll tell you about
how “open-minded” and “tolerant” they are.
How many people have you heard claim
that they “don’t see color”? Eugene is full of
people who talk this way. How many people
have you heard say that racism is a thing of the
past? If you don’t have contact with diversity, it
can be all too easy to slip into complacency—
and to assume that, because you never see racism, that it doesn’t exist anymore.
People who think this way are still in
the contact stage of racial identity development, according to Janet Helms and Beverly
Daniel Tatum (as quoted in Tatum’s book Why
Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the
Cafeteria?): “They often perceive themselves
as color-blind, completely free of prejudice,
unaware of their own assumptions about other
racial groups. In addition, they usually think of
racism as the prejudiced behaviors of individuals rather than as an institutionalized system
of advantage benefitting Whites in subtle as
well as blatant ways.” By never examining their
viewpoint, they never notice the hidden racial
presumptions they may have.
This kind of thinking denies the diversity of the United States. Even if Eugene, Oregon
is statistically a white-majority, it still belongs
to a country that is very diverse. I left Eugene
years ago, and quickly I began to experience
diversity on a level I had never seen before. I
traveled to South America, Europe, and Africa.
I lived in a black-majority neighborhood in
Northeast Philadelphia. I moved to Dorchester, where I lived in a majority-Vietnamese
neighborhood. I’ve realized it isn’t enough
anymore to be “colorblind.” Because that’s usually a code-word for something that’s far more
sinister. Something that could be described as
“white-normativity.”
When talking about your friends, do you
use phrases like “the black one” or “the Asian
one” to distinguish people from their peers? Is
the easiest shortcut to identification to use a
word describing the person’s race? In a recent
study, Daniel Levin at Kent State University
conducted a study of how well people are able
to tell other people apart depending on their
race. “When a white person looks at another
white person’s nose, they’re likely to think
to themselves, ‘That’s John’s nose,’” he wrote.
“When they look at a black person’s nose,
they’re likely to think, “That’s a black nose.’”
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 18
The white person is an individual, whereas the
person of color is described only by their color.
But try it in reverse. How many people
describe someone as “the white one”? How
many times does a white person’s race even get
mentioned? Is white the “default” in how you
describe people? Think about it this way: if
someone describes a person to you with curly
hair and brown eyes, who do you picture? In
his study, Levin found that “participants who
are poor at recognizing black faces appear to
code ‘blackness’ as a visual feature, while they
may not code ‘whiteness’ at all.” Whiteness isn’t
even registered by many people. It’s not even
noticed. Do you see the problem here? This
kind of thinking denies a place of normalcy
to anything that isn’t “white.” It casts “white”
as being the default, and makes anything nonwhite into an Other.
And that’s why it’s so important to me
that UMass Boston is so diverse. In fact, it’s the
most diverse college campus in New England,
and one of the most diverse in the whole country. But that shouldn’t be unusual—look at the
demographics. In most census categories, our
school is very close to the demographics of the
nation as a whole. It’s an astonishingly accurate
mirror of the diversity of our country.
White is not the dominant color. It’s not
the default color. And that’s why being “colorblind” is really just a form of “othering”, of
shutting out other voices and experiences. And
that’s why I’m so proud that UMass Boston is
my university. Because here all of us can study
together and hear a real diversity of experience.
Eugene, Oregon has a lot to learn.
19 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
Reflections on
by Andrew Clark
Most people have that romantic story of
when they found their true love. It’s that I saw
her standing across a bar on June 4th, 1999
tale, the transformative moment when everything that once seemed important suddenly
takes a backseat. I’m not quite sure of the exact
date—it was a Monday, a Wednesday, or Friday
back in the spring of 2007—but it was during
a required English 200 course in a nondescript
Wheatley classroom when I discovered something that I knew that I wanted to one day
pursue: teaching.
Years later, it would develop into the job
I’ve loved the most.
We had been studying “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by Keats that day. For me, this poem
had never been interesting. Not in high school.
Not the times I had come across it outside of
a classroom setting. In fact, reading it was one
of the last ways I’d ever want to spend my time.
But our professor, Scott Maisano, was able to
take this poem and make it accessible, teaching
us how to think outside of the traditional box.
He had a way of doing that with everything
he taught. I took a Shakespeare course with
him—and all of the sudden I got Shakespeare.
I studied a Renaissance lit class. The result?
Much of the same. It was Professor Maisano
who taught me this new way of thinking and
approaching life. And during my time at UMB,
I’d meet others who approached teaching this
way, this artform of making education an
experience to always remember. These people
Teaching
treated students as equals. They strayed away
from constraining the minds of their students
and made every subject they approached accessible. I knew that one day I wanted to be
just like them.
This past spring, I was fortunate enough
to get my first teaching job. And to make it
even more special, I got to come back to the
school that sparked my passion. I can’t thank
Cheryl Nixon enough for allowing me to teach
Writing for Print and Online Media on Saturdays. I came in not quite knowing what to
expect. On the one hand, I have roughly a decade’s worth of experience as a writer. Yet aside
from a few guest lecturing appearances at local
colleges, I was a rookie when it came to teaching.
Learning how to teach has been an organic process. At first, I was terribly nervous—
even more so than the first time I performed
stand-up comedy. I rehearsed my first lecture
over and over again for the days leading up to
it. Those first days, I dreaded going to class out
of pure fear. But fast forward two months and
now I’m at a stage where the saddest part of my
week is the moment I finish teaching. It means
that I have to wait another whole week to be
back with my students.
Each Saturday has been its own adventure—such as the class where we went to Harvard Square to retrace the steps of Good Will
Hunting to learn how to write travel narratives,
or that day where we brought in a stand-up
comedian to teach how to find a writing voice
and utilize humor. But true to the form of
UMB, the most special part has been the students. Each has their own unique backstory,
that inimitable makeup that makes them a
Beacon and a beacon.
Before this semester, none of my students had published anything. It was a shame
to hear that, because each of them has such a
special voice that should be shared with the
world. We decided that this fact had to change
and starting with this issue of Writ Large,
some of them are getting the first chance to
see their names in ink. Others have also started lining up gigs outside of the classroom.
I’m hopeful that it’s the start of a dozen
new writing careers.
And I’m hopeful that I’ve found a new
career myself.
Andrew Clark is a U-Mass Boston Alumnus,
graduate of Suffolk Law, and lover of all things
Icelandic. He and his class (ENGL 307 Writing
for Print and Online Media) will be making
regular appearance in Writ Large. Keep an eye
out for their coming work. - Ed.
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 20
Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend
by Ameera I. Skandarani
Image Courtesy of Ameera I. Skandarani
Few things in life fill my heart with as much joy as the dazzling brilliance
of sunlight gleaming off the sharply defined edges of an exquisitely rendered
diamond. Four days a week I fixate on the freshly drawn lines as I lace up my
cleats, and I just can’t keep the smile from my lips.
Half an hour before game time, my teammates and I gather around one
of our trucks and enjoy a beer to boost morale and get our heads in the game. I
have been described as stoical in these moments, but I don’t think I’m so deep.
In truth, I spend those thirty minutes going over the cruel berating I received
the night before.
I smile though, because when I slip on my batting gloves and step in to
the box it doesn’t matter; nothing does except connecting with the ball – hearing the unmistakable crack of a perfect hit. Time stands still, and for that instant I’m a star. Gone are the anger and resentment, and all that remains is the
raw determination which drives me as I round first – careful to avoid the line
and the misfortune it would bring – and slide straight into second. I can hear
my teammates cheering for me – their passion fueled by Bud Light and Mike’s.
Even the baseman congratulates my accomplishment. I can’t help but give in to
my resentment for a moment and the childish thoughts of “no one thinks I’m
second rate out here.”
The rush of sprinting ’round the bases is exceeded only by the rush of the
last-second outs at home. Although it’s bad on my knees, I can’t quite give up
catching. It’s too much fun heckling the batters, causing them to strike out or
pop the ball straight up in the air, and into my glove. But when one of them is
lucky enough to make it back home, it is a thrill to scoop the ball out of the air
and tag the runner who slid too early and stopped just short of home.
We spend countless hours honing our skills so that we are unbeatable. For
them, it’s about fun; for me it’s an escape. I am most comfortable in my shorts
and cleats, bat in hand. I find my confidence and control my demons, channeling them into hit after perfect hit, right down center field. I can laugh easy and
let go of the negativity that seems to consume every other aspect of my life.
Then, on game day, for ninety intense minutes, I can forget about my worries
and focus on something I am good at, something that is all mine. Is it any wonder I spend the majority of my days on the field? On the field, I am strong; on
the field I am loved. My authority isn’t challenged as it is on the job, and my
integrity isn’t questioned as it is at home. So, as I lace up my cleats, I stare at
the freshly drawn lines, gleaming in the late afternoon sun, and smile. After all,
diamonds truly are a girl’s best friend.
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 22
Poetry and Politics:
Seamus Heaney at UMass-Boston
by Lloyd Schwartz
Image Courtesy of ARTstor
One thing this little story illustrates is how long the idea of Seamus Heaney winning the Nobel
Prize has been a question not of Whether but of When. It’s also about the relation between poetry and the greater (or is it the lesser?) world. And it’s a tribute to Seamus—and Marie—Heaney’s
generosity and good humor.
Since his earliest visits to New England, Seamus has always been a good friend to UMassBoston. Perhaps because he feels at home in the Irish community of South Boston; perhaps because he admired our Irish studies program; perhaps because he has friends like Sean O’Connell
who teach there; but perhaps even more because his heart goes out to underfunded public institutions that are dedicated to serving a neglected constituency. If our campuses aren’t the last
hope for the future of poetry, what is?
So.
23 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
In the spring of 1985, Seamus accepted my invitation to give a poetry reading at UMassBoston. Station Island had recently been published and was getting a lot of attention. I thought
it was his most ambitious and remarkable book since North, and I was really looking forward
to having our students in on a tremendous literary event. Months of planning went into it. I
wanted—and expected—a crowd, and there was palpable agitation in the air about his appearance. The school had a PR person in those days and for the first time even she was excited about
poetry. The reading was scheduled for the Faculty Club on the eleventh floor of the library, one
of the largest rooms on the campus, where some 150 people could look out over the spectacular
panorama of downtown Boston and the harbor.
The day before the reading, the PR woman called me, exhilarated, even euphoric, but also
oddly apprehensive. It seemed that Jesse Jackson—much in the news then—was in town for a
long-planned speech at Harvard. Evidently, there had also been some negotiations with UMassBoston, and his people had called our people with a short-notice offer to have him speak at
Columbia Point. The PR woman was thrilled. Jesse Jackson and Seamus Heaney on campus the
same day! The hitch was they’d also be appearing at exactly the same time.
I was heartsick. How many of our students would choose poetry over politics? (I wouldn’t
have minded a first-hand glimpse of Jackson myself.) Even worse, I was afraid this coincidence
might polarize the Irish-American and African-American segments of the UMass student population.
As it turned out, both visitors attracted substantial and diverse audiences. Some 200 poetry lovers—both from within and outside the University—overflowed the Faculty Club, just as
another crowd packed the even larger Science Center Auditorium where Jesse Jackson spoke.
Seamus’s reading, which included extended passages from Station Island, was one of the most
moving I’ve ever heard him give. Marie Heaney was with him, and they both seemed pleased
by how well it had gone. Afterwards I told them the story of the unforeseen conflict and my
groundless anxiety about it.
As we headed down to the garage for the drive back to Cambridge, a group from the Jackson party, including Jesse Jackson himself and the UMass publicity woman, were funneling into
the same stairwell, for the same purpose. As the two phalanxes approached each other, the PR
woman, frantically looking for a photographer, grabbed Jackson’s arm and blurted: “Reverend
Jackson, Reverend Jackson, I’d like you to meet our next Nobel Prize poet—SEAMUS HEAMEY
[sic]!”
Jackson reached out and pumped my hand vigorously.
“Gladda meetcha!”
“No, no. Not him!” the PR woman shouted. “Him!” And the Reverend Jackson reached
out again—this time taking the proper hand.
“Gladda meetcha!”
Then, like great convoys moving onward to their separate battles, the two troops parted.
The moment we were out of range, the Heaneys and I looked at each other with a wild surmise
and exploded with laughter, congratulating ourselves on our fresh—and forthcoming—laurels as
we descended into the vast underground network of parking spaces.
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 24
Wheeling, West Virginia
Illustrated by Olin Dows
W
heeling, West Virginia is flat with many boxes. The houses have no columns or curves. Many are trailers, and many have sat for a long time. It
did not seem to me, at seven, to be a place for a vacation during the best
season of the year. It is not, unless you find yourself obligated to visit
someone who has found himself or herself there. Rosalie, Corrine Dick, and Richard,
a collection of relatives from my father’s side, had found themselves there, were not
better off for it, and I found myself obligated to visit.
Corrine is in boxes all the time. The ones that do not move are preferable. She is afraid
of leaving her current box to go to another. It’s the space in between. Her mother,
Rosalie, is stuck in one box and can’t get to another at all. Corrine gets it from her
mother.
In order of severity, from greatest to least:
Gray Rosalie of the cobweb hair.
Corrine, 16, obese in a muumuu.
Dick, whom I cannot recall any significant trait about.
Richard, 27, his lungs beyond his years.
Of mother, daughter, father, son, some feel that they are taunted by both the near and
the far places. Some are afraid of one over the other.
Obese Corrine, 16, in a muumuu: the gravity of her body drew her away from the
canyon along the way to Wheeling Park High. If she had drawn near she surely would
have fallen. The mass of the bus could not match this. She could feel that the core of
the earth was drawn directly to the vertebrae of her spine behind her belly button.
This she could not stand.
There were one hundred and eighty chances every year. The number of times Corrine
was able to round the canyon in the moving box en route to another stationary box,
over the divisor: one hundred and eighty, was not satisfactory. Thus, another box was
closed to Corrine
We camped in lieu of staying with them. They visited our campsite and we visited
their lot. A box may sit in a field through a space of twenty years without great effect.
There was some trouble with our inflatable mattress. Richard tried to help but found
his breath lacking.
In the trailer Corrine watched MTV on a brown couch covered in something like velvet. It was a constant for her, a comfort. The others have faded away now because I am
less afraid of becoming them.
On TV, someone asked about what type of underwear a man wore; he dropped his
pants in reply. Corrine changed the channel, “Oops we don’t want to see that, “ she
said to my father.
Writ Large April 1st, 2014 26
This is my crispest memory of the trip.
Every few months they would call and ask for seventy dollars, just for food. We would
send it through Western Union.
Four years later, Uncle Dick got sick. He may not have attempted to leave his trailer and
get to a hospital.
The fifth time I had spoken to him in four years, he told me on the phone, “It’s nice to
hear your voice.”
After he died, Corrine, Richard, and Rosalie moved. The told us they were going to New
Orleans to look for jobs. This was after hurricane Katrina. They had no cell phones. They
called from a pay phone a few times over many years. The calls dropped off. Is it my place
to find someone I never knew?
It’s fuzzy. I don’t understand whether my father or mother could have helped them. I was
too young to think I had the ability to take action. I don’t understand how their situation
came about. Maybe the only reason my father is any better off is that, without a college
degree, he found a customer service job that paid just enough but would allow him to
stagnate; eat, sleep, and accept. What is this and does it run in my family?
I have no fear of rounding bends to get from box to box, whether under or above
ground, no matter the degree of the curve. Once I get to the boxes I may sit within them
without distress. I may write with a pen or pencil. I may look up or down. I remember
excitement and reenact it. But I fear this is not satisfactory. I am not far enough removed.
It is too easy for me to understand how the ability to find joy in human interaction could
be lost, how life could become habit. Once you are in motion, it’s clear the difficulty was
imagined, but inertia always provides a challenge.
I look forward to the silence of the morning. I look forward to the dark at night. It’s the
spaces in between.
- by Nicole Bousquet
27 Writ Large April 1st, 2014
Jason “Jay” Lamanna
September 16th, 1984 - December 27th, 2013
When the Writ Large staff were approached with compiling a
tribute for Jason “Jay” Lamanna we were deeply saddened at the
passing of a cherished U-Mass Boston alumnus, and cognizant
of the challenge inherent in attempting to portray a multi-faceted, beautiful human being like Jay.
Instead of constructing a narrative of Jay’s life, we decided
to publish the letters from various professors and colleagues
whom Jay had a profound impression on. These letters combine the perspectives of people who had the pleasure to get to
know Jay in their own, unique ways, with their own, unique
insights into the qualities that made this man great.
We, the editors of Writ Large, hope that this poignant collection
of letters gives you pause and causes you to reflect on a life that
was too brief, yet touched many.
Our best,
Lucas Goren,
Editor in Chief, Writ Large Magazine
Kelly Danckert,
Managing Editor, Writ Large Magazine
I first met Jay Lamanna in September 2010 when he was my student in the course Literature and
Human Rights. Jay’s presence was compelling – not because he spoke a lot, but because there was
an earnestness in his eyes and demeanor, a piercing attention that he conveyed in the manner in
which he listened to what his classmates had to say, the tilt of his head as he contemplated the
implications of certain ideas, and the taut energy of his body leaning into the words that swirled
around in that memorable class. When Jay did speak it was to articulate his outrage and disbelief
that certain types of human rights violations could occur, that one set of people could envision
and execute unimaginable cruelties upon another. He was an idealist, a person who believed in
kindness and compassion and truth. He was determined to participate in creating the conditions
that would make us live up to our best intentions.
At the time, in my first semester of knowing him, I had no idea that Jay was connected to me in
another way altogether. His girlfriend (they were still in that stage of their relationship), Yemi,
was a student in the Honors Program that I directed. I only found out toward the end of the
semester that the boyfriend Yemi referred to regularly was Jay! Over the years, Jay and Yemi became an integral part of Honors activities, and somehow organically and unobtrusively I found
myself sharing with Jay my frustrations about geopolitics and legal rulings on a range of issues.
In November 2013, I invited him to speak to my class on the Alien Tort Statute and on Kiobel
versus Royal Dutch Petroleum in particular. This was a class of diverse majors – only one person
was definitely thinking of applying to law school. The other students were from English, biology,
exercise and health sciences, political science, economics, sociology, and communications studies. Jay’s passion and deep commitment to justice and his indignant bewilderment at the recent
Supreme Court ruling in the Kiobel case inspired the students. They were moved by his eloquent
statement on why the United States should care about global justice, and they were eager to learn
of his special interest in Nigeria – both its land and its people. In one short afternoon, he enacted
global citizenship and showed why it should matter.
Jay told me that day when he came up to Boston to speak to my class that he was going to be
a father. His excitement at the prospect was beautiful to see. I hugged him and told him that I
couldn’t wait to see him and Yemi with their little one. It pains me deeply that Jay will not be
able to enjoy his child.
In the four years that I had the privilege of knowing Jay, I felt his special qualities. He was a gift to
us all. I was deeply touched to hear from his mother recently that Jay “found himself ” at UMass
Boston. We feel lucky that Jay thought of UMass Boston as his first academic home. He will
always be very dear to us.
Rajini Srikanth
Professor, English, Dean, Honors College, University of Massachusetts Boston
Jay Lamanna was a student in my classes during all of his three semesters of law school. It is
always a pleasure to work with someone who has found his calling – a true believer in the good
that can be done by their chosen field. Jay had found his calling, and challenged those around
him to live up to their own.
I was most impressed by his innately sensing the disconnect between a legal principle and the
individual persons that might be negatively impacted by that principle’s application. While
this initially came up in Contracts class, Jay soon expressed his interest in international human
rights, talking with me about a case I had mentioned, and perhaps he was already following,
regarding oil exploitation and human rights abuses in Nigeria. Jay threw himself into work on
issues relating to the case, discussing it with me after Contracts class, and delving into it in his
second year of law school, as he studied human rights and international law.
And while Jay’s focus on issues of international law and human rights gained in intensity, his
interest in improving the law school also grew. As a member of the National Lawyers Guild, Jay
stopped by to discuss rumored potential curricular changes, knocking on faculty doors to advocate not just for his peers, but for the future of our institution. Jay had clearly chosen to make a
difference – to do what one person could to make the world around him a better place. We are
certainly better off for his time with us.
Matthew Charity
Associate Professor of Law
Western New England University School of Law
Honestly, I did not know Jay very well, but what I know of him I liked. I knew he was involved
in the National Lawyers’ Guild and that he participated in our International Human Rights Clinic. I knew he cared about his community based on his active participation in the law school’s
“town hall” meetings in that fall. I liked all of those things. I did not know his whole back story;
about how committed he was to doing something worthwhile with his law degree; about how
he took a while to get his bearings in life; or about how he met and fell in love with his wife. I
learned about those things at his memorial service.
That memorial service was beautiful. The minister did a great job, but the assembled family and
friends moved me to tears. I left there really feeling the loss of a person who had the passion,
commitment and intelligence to make a difference in the world. I felt that loss not only as the
Dean of his law school, knowing that I lost an alumnus who could have made his mark in the
world, but also as a citizen and fellow human being, knowing that someone who was willing to
try to fight the good fight was never going to get the chance.
By sad coincidence, Jay’s was the second memorial service I attended that day. Earlier I had been
at the funeral of Judge Sidney Cooley, an alumnus of the law school, class of 1940. Judge Cooley
lived to be 100 years old. Over the course of his life he used his law degree to make a difference
in the world. After World War II he served a governor general for a state in Germany helping to
remake the lives of displaced survivors of Nazi concentration camps. In his practice he focused
on helping workers with legal problems. On the bench he was universally recognized for his
wisdom and compassion. He loved music and was an accomplished piano player. He loved his
wife in a way so genuine it was obvious to all who saw them. In the end, despite all his accomplishments he was humble and gentle.
With Judge Cooley’s service fresh in my mind, I sat in Jay’s memorial and thought about how,
had he lived to be 100, all of the things said about Judge Cooley would have been said about Jay.
The two of them had the most important ingredient to be a good lawyer – heart. But Jay is not
going to get to be 100, he will always be 29. The loss of two members of our community is a sad
thing. In Judge Cooley’s case, though, it was more of a celebration of a life well-lived. In Jay’s
case I could not help but felt the pain of potential unrealized. I will think of that lost potential
often.
Eric Gouvin,
Dean of the Western New England University School of Law
Jay was a student in my Constitutional Law class several years ago, and I want to replay two
vivid memories that capture his deep humanity.
The first memory is when our class studied Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court ruling that
awarded the contested 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. Jay told us about his experience of living in Florida at the time and recounted his distress over witnessing widespread and
overt racism that was both a source and a byproduct of the bitter litigation. In that real-world
context, he told his riveted classmates, he could not fathom the Court’s expressed concern over
a lack of a uniform standard for interpreting voter intent behind the “hanging chads.” With a
mix of bitterness and wistfulness, Jay highlighted the Court’s blindness to the fact that officials
in Florida counties with a large African-American population had deliberately created confusing ballots in order to suppress their voting rights. To Jay, these were unforgivable acts of exclusion – conduct that, in his view, should have been at the heart of the Court’s Equal Protection
concerns. The Court’s reasoning in Bush v. Gore struck him as hollow, perhaps even cynical. I
knew then that Jay was destined to be a great lawyer and a great teacher – because he was such
an outstandingly decent human being.
The second memory is when Jay told me about marrying Yemi and going to Nigeria, her
native country. He brimmed with enthusiasm as he described meeting her family and experiencing a culture so different from his own. He was profoundly moved by the love and affection
that were so freely given in Nigeria. At the same time, Jay expressed his deepest admiration for
Yemi’s commitment to pursuing a medical degree in order to help those in desperate need of
health care. And his own exposure to the existence of both generosity of spirit in Nigeria’s culture and to the dire poverty on the African continent ignited his passion for using the law to advance social justice. These two vignettes are, of course, connected by Jay’s desire to see the Equal
Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution live up to its promise of equality for all Americans and
to see international human rights law promote justice for so many impoverished – and so often
exploited – Nigerians and other Africans who struggle each day to survive intolerable hardship.
Elizabeth Bussiere
Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass Boston
Jay and I met just over a year ago through the Western New England Law School chapter of the
National Lawyers’ Guild. Jay was a first year student and I was the chapter’s informal faculty
advisor. I was immediately struck by how the other members, most of whom were senior to him,
looked to Jay for leadership, even though he rarely spoke at meetings. I soon learned that Jay’s
principled radicalism and unfailing personal kindness had very quickly earned the confidence
and respect of his colleagues. Jay could also be scathingly sarcastic, especially when he spotted
pretense, which was often. But Jay’s wit skewered self-importance of all political stripes, even
that of his own tribe of lefties. His exchanges w/ Ursula, a very serious Lawyers’ Guild staffer
in Boston, were comic classics, even for those of us who heard only his side of the conversation. Jay also loved sports, especially the Red Sox and the Florida State Seminoles, almost, but
only almost, as he loved justice. This passion connected him w/ many people who thought they
didn’t share his values, but found common ground through Jay’s profound decency. Jay’s politics,
I gradually learned, were formed largely by his deep commitment to the simple notion that we
all ought to treat each other well. He was convinced that the political/economic system we live
under prevented that. Jay had already made many contributions to a better world when he was
so inexplicably taken from us. In his quiet way, he surely would have made many more.
Bruce Miller,
Professor of Law,
Western New England University School of Law
Thank you for asking me to contribute to a memorial for Jay Lamanna. Jay was an active member of the Western New England Law School Community and he is deeply missed. Jay was a
presence at the law school and was involved in many student groups and activities. I served on
committees with Jay and knew him to be a caring, compassionate, and thoughtful person. Jay
had an engaging smile and a friendly disposition and, despite the many stresses of law school,
never seemed to lose his sense of humor or perspective. He listened intently and spoke thoughtfully.
In addition to being involved in many pro bono activities (I have attached a picture of Jay on our
Pioneer Valley Social Justice Tour in September 2013) Jay was also selected to participate in the
International Human Rights Clinic with Professor Lauren Carasik. Professor Carasik, wrote of
Jay: “ Both in the clinic and outside of class, I had many animated conversations with Jay about
his life’s work. He was thoughtful, engaged, impassioned and deeply committed to principles of
justice and equality. As a lawyer, he would have made a measurable and meaningful difference
in the lives of those least able to make their voices heard. Jay’s passing is an incalculable loss for
his family and for those fighting for global justice.” Jay was a wonderful person and he is deeply
missed.
Beth D. Cohen
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Professor of Law and Director of the Legal Research and Writing Program
Western New England University School of Law
It is an honor to write this tribute to Jason “Jay” Lamanna. I had the privilege of teaching Jay
during the first semester of his first year at Western New England University School of Law. Jay
came to our law school with a mission to further the cause of social justice. He fully immersed
himself in his studies and in extracurricular student organization activities. As a student, Jay was
prepared, frequently raised his hand and made a positive contribution to the class conversation.
Jay was clearly well liked and respected. When he was in my class, he sat close to the center of
the action, flanked by people who quickly became his close friends. When I saw Jay in the halls
he was inevitably surrounded by classmates.
Jay attracted people to him for good reason. Because of his qualities – modesty, passion, goodness, intelligence and personality – Jay influenced those around him in a commendable way.
Rather than lament what Jay might have been, I see in his legacy an example. Because Jay possessed such admirable qualities, he attracted people to him and made a positive impact upon
them. Through that influence, Jay’s goodness, passion and spirit will live on.
Julie E. Steiner
Associate Professor of Law,
Western New England University School of Law
Jason and his wife, Yemi
100 Morrissey Blvd.
Boston, MA 02125
Honors college