Coming of Age in a Divisive Time

Dear Classmates,

The winter of 1978—featuring the famous January and February blizzards—was 45 years ago, which means that this coming spring will mark the 45th year since our graduation…which means of course that spring will bring our 45th reunion.

Our 2023 45th Reunion Chair Randy Smith recently sent you a “get ready for Reunion message” and very shortly the College will open registration for Reunion. We hope to have a strong turn-out, a good warm-up for our 50th Reunion six years from now.

As we prepare for our 45th Reunion, I’m aware that some of us don’t feel as close to or connected with the College as we used to. As we age into our later sixties, some of us may feel that the College has drifted too far from the values and principles that made the College what it was for us.

I have a few thoughts to share with you, as class president and moreover as a classmate, starting with…

Thought 1: The College is always changing because the College is always in motion.

Thought 2: The motion of the College isn’t a line, always and infinitely traveling away from some starting point (1821) or a particular reference point (our time at the College in the mid- to late-70s). The motion of the College is more like a pendulum. Permanent changes do happen, but the tendency of the institution, over time, is toward moderation.

Thought 3: Whatever the current motion of the College, it doesn’t necessarily, and in fact should not, change our relationship to our college experiences and, moreover, to each other and the friendships we forged at Amherst.

Think about it: Today’s Amherst has a lot in common with the college of our day.

That commonality starts with the general principle that, to a large degree, the actions of a given generation are reactions to the actions (or inactions) of prior generations. The intensity of those actions can vary, generation by generation, period by period. There are quieter periods (my sense is the 80s and 90s were relatively quiet for Amherst College) and there are noisier periods.

We came into Amherst in the fall of 1974, at the tail end of a noisy and divisive period. Our administration, our faculty and the graduating classes that preceded us had all been and were still reacting to a tumultuous period.  

  •  Assassinations of national leaders
  •  A war many felt unjust and/or a war we couldn’t win
  • Widespread civil disturbance tied to both racial and political fracture lines
  •  Environmental degradation
  • Oil shocks
  • Stagflation & rampant unemployment
  • The departure of industrial jobs from the North to the South
  • Presidential candidates who played upon racial and class prejudices
  • A Democratic Party prone to pronouncing  “We hold intellectual and moral superiority over you.”
  • A Republican Party prone to pronouncing “We own this country more than you do”
  • A president who presided over the breaking of laws
  • A nation that couldn’t pass the Equal Rights Amendment for Women

Ours was a time of division. As a younger generation, many of us reacted strongly and dissentingly to problems we believed older generations had created or not solved. Our College president, John William Ward, got arrested in the process of expressing his convictions. I’m sure many older alumni thought it was perilous and outrageous that the president of the College had been arrested, while many of us students at the time saw his protest and arrest as evidence that John William Ward was a man of principle and bravery, willing and able to stand up and pay a price for his beliefs. In a divisive time, he was also a man who strove to unify us. 

There’s no question that at times our generation over-reacted, in ways that were damaging to the social fabric of the nation, to Amherst College and to ourselves. 

But there were also good things that came out of our time, no matter the degree to which current generations are inclined to write off (we) Boomers as a toxic generation. The Environmental Protection Act was passed in our time, by a Republican administration. Gasoline no longer had lead in it and the river I grew up along no longer ran green from the dumping of paper dyes and other chemicals from the riverside paper mills.

It was also in our time that women were admitted to Amherst, greatly strengthening the intellectual, social, cultural and moral character of our College. And Title IX became the law of our land and gave collegiate women the full and equal right to participate in collegiate sport.   

Now let’s think about what the Amherst leadership, faculty and classes of recent years have been reacting to:

  • Demonization of national leaders
  • Multiple wars some felt unjust and/or wars we couldn’t win
  • Widespread civil disturbance tied to both racial and political fracture lines
  • Climate Change and rampant environmental concerns
  • Energy shocks
  • The threat of Stagflation
  • Widespread perception of widening income inequality
  • The departure of industrial jobs from the US to other countries
  •  Presidential candidates who played upon racial and class prejudices
  • A Democratic Party prone to pronouncing “We hold intellectual and moral superiority over you.”
  • A Republican Party prone to pronouncing “We own this country more than you do”
  • A president who presided over the breaking of norms
  • A nation that still can’t get the Equal Rights Amendment for Women made law in every state

It shouldn’t surprise any of us that the College of today has reacted strongly to this state of division, in ways that may occasionally make some of us crazy. 

Against this backdrop of divisiveness, the College has in recent years emphasized in its actions and communications the pursuit of diversity. 

As a half Slovak / half Irish scholarship kid from Western Mass (thank you for believing in me, Ed Wall!), I am totally in support of giving promising youngsters from every possible segment of society and corner of the world the opportunity of an Amherst College education. 

Here, though, is the challenge that the College has taken on: The challenge of balancing diversity and unity. It’s a challenge verging on paradox. Many in the Class of 1978 may feel that the College has pursued the goal of diversity at the cost of unifying the entirety of the College community, including Amherst alumni, around a larger unifying vision.

But if any of us feel that way, disengagement with the College community is not the answer, not if the College is a place we still believe in and value…not if the College gave us opportunities for which we should be forever grateful (count me in!)….not if the College continues to be the place that gave us learning and relationships of enduring value.  

If we believe the College should be unified around larger, enduring beliefs and values, we achieve nothing if we disengage, especially since we, as a generation, have much to share with today’s generation around the experience of coming of age in a divisive time.  

I’ve already gone on too long, and perhaps said too little or only added to confusion and division, but I hope you’ll take my note as evidence of the following:

  1.       The College let me share this communication with you, in support of our beginning (emphasis on beginning) an honest and open dialogue as alumni about our current feelings about the College
  2.       This communication is, therefore, only a starting point in sparking a larger conversation among us
  3.       I invite all of you to come forward with ways in which you’d like to keep the conversation going
  4.       I strongly recommend Reunion 2023 as a great opportunity to unify

Thanks for letting me share this with you, 

Ed Pitoniak ’78
Class President