Daniel J. Flynn

    Bradford College in Massachusetts is giving new meaning to a liberal arts education. 
This school year the small Haverhill, Massachusetts college is offering a major in social activism. Studies in Social Justice offers such courses as “Activism for a Just Society,” “Philosophy of Sexuality,” “Ethnic American Women’s Literature,” “Social Inequity and Stratification,” and “Non-Violent Social Activism.”

    While the school’s president, Dr. Jean Scott, has said that the program will benefit all Bradford students, the director of the new department admits that the major is heavily weighted to the Left and is geared toward students looking to get involved in radical causes. 
Campus critics who label the major politically-charged and biased, Studies in Social Justice director Allan Rachlin admits, are essentially correct. The sociology professor defends his new program by asking, “What major, what course, what professor does not have a political agenda?”

    Rachlin points out that the faculty members involved in the program share his opinion that no professor could, or even should, be neutral. “I question the very idea of objectivity,” he revealed to Campus Report. 

    The program is the brainchild of Rachlin, Philosophy Professor Peggy Walsh, and Humanities Professor Joanne Megna-Wallace. Studies in Social Justice combines existing courses with several new classes and a service learning requirement. In addition to class work like tests and essays, students majoring in the program are required to do volunteer work and internships.

    “There are a number of community activists that come in and speak to students,” the program’s director told Campus Report. Labor leaders and environmentalists are typical of the local activists who lecture to students, Rachlin stated. A purpose of these lectures is to spark students into action. Rachlin points to a recent in-class address by a Green Party activist that caused a student to volunteer with the environmentalist political party as an example of the program fulfilling its mission. He divulged that no conservative lecturer has addressed students in the class. 

    Although classrooms are used to promote liberal ideas and students are encouraged to perform service for Leftist organizations, Rachlin contends that any student is welcome to sign-up for the program’s courses. If a conservative student were to major in Studies in Social Justice, Rachlin maintains, he would be treated the same as other students enrolled in the program. 

    Rachlin says that the department came about as the result of “a re-examination on this campus of parts of our curriculum and how we could better respond to student interests and student needs.” The sociology professor maintains, “There was a recognition that there was a significant number of students who are interested in the broad issues of social justice, equality, and matters of that sort.” Mark Huddle, a history professor involved in the program, agrees. Huddle told a local reporter that the new major “fulfills a need that many of our students have.” 

    The number of students enrolled in the program suggests that rather than serving the needs of students, the new major was created for professors seeking to benefit the causes they hold dear. Out of a student population of 600, Rachlin admits that there are only four or five students who have either declared Studies in Social Justice as their major or intend to do so shortly. Usually academic departments suffer from an imbalance in the student/professor ratio. There is an imbalance in the new program, however, it is instructors who heavily outnumber students. Courses and professors that are part of the program outnumber students by ratios of 9 to 1 and 5 to 1, respectively. Several dozen professors are involved in the department and teach courses that can be counted toward the major. More than 40 courses are offered within the department as well.   

    One of the students involved in the program, Sophomore Carina Valvo, is excited about the opportunity to tackle such issues as “human rights,” “low-income housing,” and “animal rights.” “I see our generation as a lot more involved in issues,” Valvo explained, “this is something that I’ve been involved with for quite a bit of time now.” Valvo contends that the department doesn’t “dictate which organizations you should become involved with” or tell you “how to approach issues.” After she receives her degree, Valvo hopes to join the Peace Corps, do legal work for poor people, or perhaps even open up a school of her own.   
 
    The department’s courses are broken down into five areas: Race and Ethnicity, Gender Justice, Understanding and Addressing Justice, Economic Justice, and History and Geography. Students must complete course work in at least two classes from three of these areas. 
    
    Bradford’s new president, Jean Scott, is a staunch defender of the unique major. “We believe that our students have a responsibility to make the world a better place,” she opines, “to use their knowledge in ways that benefit other people, and their society as well as themselves.” 

    Whether Bradford’s new program will succeed in making the world a better place is open to debate.