By Barrett Holman Leak in Boston, Massachusetts
Recently I had the opportunity to attend Homecoming at Emerson College, my alma mater. Talk about gorgeous! Beautiful crisp autumn leaves of gold, auburn, forest green, and burgundy. The air was fresh and I was able to even wear long johns and a turtleneck, a wool cardigan and gloves. Best of all I was able to connect with Ben, from my original inner circle of friends. We all have kept in touch over the years but this was our first time for any of us to connect at Homecoming/Alumni Weekend.
“We made it! And we’re still alive!” we quipped quite a few times.
Ben does fabulous stuff in Los Angeles. Along the way from graduation he, like me, pivoted and did a few different things. We were so blessed by our alma mater, a well-known communications school that is known now for having its own mafia in all areas of TV, theatre, film, entertainment, marketing and public relations as well as film.
We both shared how when we came into contact with fellow alum Henry Winkler, just the mention of our alma mater caused the award-winning “The Fonz” actor, director, producer and author to take extra time to talk with us.
Over various conversations coaching students in their final year and some who were incoming, we reflected on having people like Max Mutchnik, Jennifer Coolidge, Marci Klein (Calvin Klein’s daughter and an SNL producer) and Melanie Roy (Rodney Dangerfield’s daughter, and SNL producer) as classmates and comedian/ actor Denis Leary as an instructor. I was able to share about my early experiences working at CBS -TV while taking my classes and getting a job at CBS Radio as a newswriter just before graduating.
I had some promising and exciting conversations with some young women and men who are getting ready to search for full-time positions as professional journalists. My advice to them included that they must join the Society of Professional Journalists, know how to do everything in front of and behind the camera/mic, and focus on getting the objective facts. They really were not too clear on the difference between advocacy and objective newswriting. But I think they will all be great journalists.
The studios, radio stations and theatres were STUNNING. I think I graduated from the BEST communications school in the country.
To my surprise I also got an unexpected first. I was so busy working my first job as a morning newswriter at CBS Radio that somehow it never got communicated to me that I was nominated for and WON the Boston version of an Emmy – a Boston EVVY for Best Newswriter! Not only that, because I never received my award, they were making me a new one with my name on it and I will receive it in 2027.
Just so you know, once I have it, if you come to my home, it will be the first thing I show you once you get in the door. “Hello! Come on in! Have you seen my EVVY?”
But that was not the most surprising thing. The most unexpected thing for me was in the midst of a networking lunch for us alumni, I found I was sitting next to a woman who admitted she was part of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and related groups who blockaded access to dorms, dining halls and classrooms for Jewish students and anyone who failed to “correctly answer the question “Are you Zionist or anti-Zionist?”
I recalled seeing a video of the demonstration and blocking of the entranceway. I also remember that the police were called and those students were arrested and removed.
“This is the school you go to because you can come here and be who you are without fear. You can walk down the street in your silk pajamas every day and no one will say anything or even think anything about it. You can be any orientation, any ethnicity, be eccentric. By yourself. Freely”
Lily (I won’t use her real name) stared at me from about three inches away.
“So why would you harass other students and make them afraid? Because of their ethnicity?”
She launched into response, her body stiffening.
The administration –”. I cut her off.
The administration is not the students. Why would you harass and frighten them?”
“The administration wouldn’t listen to us!”
“The administration is not the students.” I said.
She looked around the table at other people who also experienced the same openness my friends and I did at the college. Wacky, weird, wild, willful, woozy and woebegone. We all had 100% acceptance in the student body. Everyone was busy being themselves and practicing live and let live. It never occurred to us to harass other students on campus.
“Did you send letters or emails to the administration with what you wanted?” I asked.
She was not personally sure that it was done but thought someone had.
“So why didn’t you go to the Israeli Consulate and protest over there? On the sidewalk. You could have protested Israel there and demanded companies divest and all the things you wanted. We did it.” I shared.
“But the administration wasn’t fair. They sent people to jail and they arrested people. Some couldn’t graduate.” Lily sputtered
She explained that she is Middle Eastern, which I had recognized earlier. I told her I am Jewish. She started to leave the table.
“No, you need to stay in relationship.” I told her. “Stay in the conversation and talk through this. Help me understand. I know about SJP. Why did you make that blockade these student’s college experience? They could not divest.”
She sat down.
Lily told me several more times that the administration would not listen to her and her fellow demonstrators’ divestment demands. I repeatedly questioned the decision to take out their frustration on students. (I later spoke with a student who verified that he had to physically fight to get through the entrance). Actually, I felt hurt that someone would attend my alma mater and think they had a right to make someone have a bad college experience and feel less than total support and acceptance.
Finally, we turned to other topics at the table.
SJP and the other aligned groups were unsuccessful that spring of 2024. Like many private liberal arts colleges, the school’s endowment (valued at around $200 million) is managed largely through pooled fund managers, index funds, and indirect private equity vehicles rather than direct corporate stocks or sovereign Israel Bonds. The primary fiduciary responsibility of the endowment is financial sustainability to support scholarships and operations, declining to alter investment strategies to meet geopolitical demands. That includes scholarship like the ones she got to attend and get her master’s degree.
My friend and I took tours around the campus and city and listened to other people reminisce. The Alumni Office offered to connect me with all the San Diego area alumni so we can have a San Diego chapter. I went to the Bull & Finch pub, where yes, once, my friend and I went weekly for a pint and chicken fingers and where truly everybody knew our name. It is mostly a tourist trap now, but it looked the same.
I left with the same feeling I had when I came. No student should have an unexpectedly horrible college experience and college administrations should make sure that harassment of Jewish or ANY student group never happens again. If it does, shut it down immediately. College should be all about great memories of doing foolish, daring, wild, and crazy things, studying and learning from professors and your life, making some mistakes you can recover from, respecting everyone else’s path while walking your own and making some of the best friends you will ever have in life.
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Barrett Holman Leak is a freelance writer based in San Diego.