President Gann,

I am a CMC alum presently attending Harvard Law School. I read, with some amusement, a recent article on claremontmckenna.com describing an interview with you. The article quotes you as saying the following:

"I read the Electronic Chronicle of Higher Education, and in today's, ... one of the little notices says the Harvard Law School has hired an outside consultant to figure out why their students are so unhappy [laughs]. I'd like to hire an outside consultant to find out why are our students so happy here [laughs again]. . . ."

Unfortunately, as we've learned at Harvard, consultants cost a lot of money, especially when you're only paying them to tell you the same things your students have been saying for years. The way I see it, the less money CMC spends on similar consulting, the more money there'll be to send me those cute free calendars every year. And I like those calendars.

So, if only out of self-interest, permit me to make a few observations about why students at CMC are fundamentally happier than those at Harvard Law School. Don't worry, if this saves you hundreds of thousands of dollars in McKinsey fees, I won't ask for reimbursement. Very selfless of me, don't you think?

1. CMC views itself as fundamentally student-centered.

This is, in part, obvious. As a small liberal arts college, CMC has small classes, factors teaching heavily into the tenure decision, does not use T.A.'s, gives students direct and frequent access to their professors, and so forth. There's no getting around the basic differences between any small school and a place like HLS, where 150-person classes are standard.

CMC's student focus, however, goes deeper than the numbers and the basic incentives given to the faculty. There is an overall climate of student-centeredness at CMC that is difficult to put a finger on, but makes a profound difference. It's the little things. Students sitting at the head table at the Ath. Administrators who actually know a substantial chunk of students by name. Professors who stay in their offices with open doors, well beyond posted office hours. Faculty and students eating together in the same dining hall.

(By contrast, Harvard not only has a separate dining hall room with reserved tables for faculty -- it even has a separate faculty library, so that professors need not do their research in the company of students. It's not merely that such things don't happen at CMC; rather, such things are *unthinkable* at CMC. That's what I mean when I talk about a "climate.")

2. CMC views the learning experience broadly, and encourages students to view themselves broadly.

The most unhappy students at HLS tend to follow a set pattern: they came from schools where they focused heavily on academics to the exclusion of all else. They got straight A's and outstanding test scores. They got admitted to Harvard, and immediately found themselves in competition with people who were just as smart as them. Having been set up all their lives to associate self-esteem with external measures of academic performance, many of these people suddenly find themselves at a loss, simply because they are mainstream students without stand-out grades. The result: insecurity, over-competition, and sometimes even abject misery.

So why not at CMC? You have, after all, the same environment: bright students, many of whom are used to having the best grades in high school and suddenly no longer do. The difference is that CMC discourages such an exclusive focus on academic success. Everything about the place seems designed to foster the belief that education comes from a broad spectrum of experiences, rather than the narrow lens of classroom success. Students are told that they are being trained to be "leaders," which legitimizes the idea that being captain of an athletic team, head of a club, an R.A., or an ASCMC Senator represents just as much of an academic success as does an "A" on one's senior thesis. There are scores of ways to "succeed" at CMC under this broad rubric, and yet you get there without some sort of facile "everybody wins" mentality.

CMC rewards all sorts of student achievements: tangibly, through fellowships, prizes, and awards, of course. But also intangibly -- through the prestige and unique experiences available to people like Ath Fellows, student leaders, community service coordinators, etc. When many avenues to success are offered, and different types of success all receive positive reinforcement from the community, the result can only be a positive one. You not only wind up with happy students. You also wind up with students who believe in themselves and their own abilities: the sort of people who might later come to Harvard Law School and be too busy doing interesting things to waste much time crying over B's on their transcripts. Those are the kind of people who are happy here, and in the great Real World beyond. CMC produces them, where many other schools do not.

3. CMC is young.

This is a factor that many people underestimate. As a CMC student, I took the school's age for granted, and never gave much thought to it. But I have learned a few things after travelling to the far coast. (Let's face it -- it's been a hell of a transition: CMC is the youngest of America's elite institutions of higher learning, while Harvard is the oldest.)

Harvard, as an institution, defines itself by what it *is*. Everything about the place is structured to *preserve* the success it has already achieved. Harvard's incentive is simple: to stay in place, to continue to be regarded as "the best," and not to risk anything that might destroy such a reputation.

CMC, as an institution, defines itself by what it wants to be. CMC knows that it is going places; much of the debate that goes on, from students to faculty to trustees, is about what the best way to get there might be... and, indeed, where "there" is in the first place.

The result of this is a phenomenon that I think many at CMC take for granted: an overall sense that even the fundamental tenets of the school are open for debate and subject to revision. The obvious example here is the long-standing argument over how much CMC should specialize in economics and government versus how much it should try to be a broad liberal arts institution. Without taking a position on that question, I would suggest that the very fact of the argument indicates what a healthy community CMC is. John Roth taught me that the essence of philosophy is "living the questions." Isn't that what CMC does?

Not so at Mother Harvard. Here, we know where we are. We know what we stand for. It took hundreds of years to get here, and we're proud of our distinguished history. Nothing's wrong with that, of course: but the history and age tends to produce an attitude of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." As a result, change here comes in violent spurts -- discontent simmers for years or even decades, until outraged student activism or immense faculty turmoil forces some sort of action. A good example is the story of how long it took HLS to go co-ed, and the painful history of sexism and condescension that persisted for decades after the change. (CMC's own transition was, of course, not without similar unpleasantness. But my sense of the history is that the change was far more painful and protracted at Harvard.)

There are, of course, benefits to age and drawbacks of youth. A notable one is the lack of traditions at CMC, the sorts of things that can define a community. Too many traditions may leave a school stuck in the ruts, unable to change. But too few can leave a school without a basic set of cultural bonds that draw its students and alumni together. CMC can do better here.

Another obvious drawback to youth for many schools would be the lack of a network of well-placed alumni. Far and away, the largest benefit of my Harvard degree will be the access I now have to a community of some of the most powerful and successful people in America. Yet here, CMC does a remarkable job for a school 50 years old. While I doubt it compares with Harvard's network, CMC's truly is astonishing, given its status as the new kid on the block.

4. CMC knows who you are.

This purely intangible statement may really be what it all comes down to. At its worst, a small school is a gossip mill where everyone knows everybody's business and no one is free to find private space. But at its best, a school like CMC provides outlets and escape routes for individual privacy and exploration, while still extending a broad net of community.

When CMC students start to fall through the cracks, administrators or faculty usually know about it and have the means to act (even if not always successfully). When students complain, somebody listens (even if not always sympathetically). When students go to class, their professors know and care about nearly all of them as individuals, rather than just the select few who participate regularly or attend office hours.

Is this an inherent function of life at a small school? Perhaps. But I like to think that institutions such as the Athenaeum combine with a broader set of shared values to create a uniquely personal environment at CMC, an environment more rich than what can be achieved by small size alone.

Let me illustrate (and close) with one anecdote. The day before graduation, I was at a reception attended by Admissions office staffers, and I started chatting with a (now-departed) Associate Dean of Admission. She told me, with some amusement, about her impression of me at the McKenna Achievement Awards weekend more than four years earlier. She said: "I remember that we were all a little worried about you when you first came here. We didn't know if you were going to succeed in this environment, and it's been a great pleasure to see you put our fears to rest in the last four years."

Think about that. Admissions officers read countless applications every day for months at a time. Every year, they confront a whole new class of high school seniors, and every year the process must be exhausting. Yet she somehow remembered not just my name -- she had followed my career at CMC, remembering my questionable behavior in 1992, and actually taking pleasure in knowing that the Admissions office had made the right call, after all!

That, President Gann, is a school that knows who it's designed to serve. That is a school with its eyes on the right prize. That is a school set up to produce successful students who believe in themselves. That is CMC.

So, please, save yourself the money on the McKinsey consultants and spend it somewhere else. After all, I'd be willing to bet that Torrey could use a raise.

Best wishes,
Jake Zimmerman, '96