WINTER 2012 - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and ...

David Schultz
material. Losing blue-collar students means a societal loss of talent. There is
evidence that gender (Gilligan, 1993), race (Bowen, Bok, & Loury, 2000), and
culture (Finkel, 2001) are critical variables affecting how individuals see the
world, and the same is true with class. Class matters, and the loss of blue-collar
students and faculty affects the diversity and perspectives offered in higher
education, thereby narrowing the potential viewpoints present in colleges
and universities. Additionally, the loss of blue-collar professors might mean a
diminished institutional capacity to empathize with or support current firstgeneration
students. The latter lose role models, supporting faculty who share or
understand their concerns, perspectives, and perhaps values. Finally, closing the
door to first-generation or blue-color students increasingly is just bad business—
they are the largest population wanting to go to college. Yet if they are excluded,
higher education loses students and tuition dollars it needs to survive.
This article is not a complaint or declaration of victimhood, or a call for
affirmative action for first-generation faculty. This is not what most of us blue
collars want. At least this is not what I want. We simply want a chance. We
want to live in a world and in an academy where real merit—hard work and
smarts—is what matters. We take seriously the equality of opportunity argument
and want to play fair in a fair game, not one rigged by status and privilege. This
is what I try to impart in my teaching, and all of my students, regardless of
backgrounds, appreciate it.
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