Two major Yale events are happening this April, and there's a lot of trepidation about what might happen when they coincide.
I'm talking about the union's strike and the Berkeley streak.
We all remember Future Freshman Days. Yalies will line up on Old Campus and show the prefrosh that we're much better endowed-where it counts-than Harvard. But this year, there might be a twist: the unions might line up throughout Yale and loudly voice their protests against the administration.
What will happen? Will the unions take their cue from the Yalies and shed their clothes as well as their placards? Will the Yalies take their cue from the unions and start soliciting honks in the buff? When it comes down to streak versus strike, who will make the bigger impression?
If the prefrosh are more impressed by the streak, they will join the ranks of cool Yalies. As for those prefrosh who opt for some other school...well, the future Unabomers from Harvard will inevitably sniff, "How will that help them get into med school?" Future Brown people will ask, "Why aren't his nipples pierced?" And the future Cornell people will say, "I don't ever want it to be warm enough for people to do this."
So it's likely that the streak won't change people's minds about whether or not they come to Yale.
But the strike-that's a different story. The prospective students' introduction will be sullied by disgruntled workers, megaphones and poor singing. If you were a high school senior, can you picture what it would have been like if your tours were interrupted by striking workers? It might have motivated you to go elsewhere.
Many of us sympathize with the unions (hey, my dad was a union negotiator, I know what this is like). We fully support their efforts to strike, picket, and hold rallies.
But no Yalie should support the unions' attempts to discourage prefrosh from attending Yale in the fall.
Should the brightest students go elsewhere merely because Yale's employees have serious grievances with management? Of course the answer is no, no matter how much you support the unions. Otherwise you'd be putting in your transfer application and waving good-bye. Still, undecided prefrosh are more impressionable. The strike might have a very significant effect on their college decision.
Discouraging prefrosh from attending Yale helps no one. Obviously it hurts the Administration, professors, alumni and us. And while it may not hurt the unions directly, it certainly does nothing to help their cause. It will succeed in further annoying both the Administration and the student population, but it seems unlikely that Yale will offer the unions a better contract as a result.
It may sound trite, but Yale is like one big family. Right now there's a family squabble, definitely a long and bitter one. But someday the fight will be over, and all of us will once again work together for education, enlightenment, and kicking Harvard's butt in football. Why should the unions do something irrevocable that they will later regret? It would be one thing if discouraging the prefrosh would help the unions get a better contract. But that is unlikely. And by turning away prefrosh, the unions will only hurt their future jobs. It is everyone's responsibility-not just the Administration's-- to make sure that all the prefrosh aren't deluded into attending a weaker school. While it may not be the best employer, this is irrelevant to Yale's status as the country's greatest academic institution.
Perhaps I am being too critical. Perhaps the unions will agree to put down their signs and work with Yale on Future Freshman Days. We will just have to wait and see. But I know that the moment I will be waiting for will be when the prefrosh witness the bizarre spectacle of Local 35 shedding its clothes. The prefrosh will look down briefly, turn to their freshman host, and say, with not a little sarcasm, "The mighty, mighty unions, huh? Hmph. Looks like a contract isn't all they're missing."
Benjamin Carp is a sophomore in Trumbull.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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