If I walked up to people and asked them if they cared about inclusivity, I think most people would say yes. The problem is, I don’t think CMCers fully understand what inclusivity takes. Inclusivity requires sacrifice. We don’t talk about this, because we want to convince ourselves that it's easy to do, so that it's palatable and easy to support. But it’s not. Inclusion means that the most privileged among us sacrifice something to level the playing field. Sometimes the sacrifice is a little...

My first year was also the first year of the CMC Advocates. Consequently, they had no power or funding. Bystander intervention, however, was alive and well. We heard that term repeatedly through orientation, from RAs, from FYGs. Personally, I didn’t really get it. It seemed pretty important, but I don’t think I had a clear understanding of all the ways in which a night could go wrong. Pretty early in our fall semester, one of my female friends started making comments about how a well...

Claremont McKenna College is committed to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity and effective dialogue. The value of an education, especially a liberal arts education, comes in large part from being intellectually pushed. In the pursuit of higher learning, this often means that one will have to be made to feel uncomfortable. The Athenaeum talks and classes I’ve enjoyed most have forced me to grapple with ideas I hadn’t before and made me learn to think in new ways. I can’t speak for all...

For all the first years who are nervous about their Claremont McKenna College journey, I want you to know that when I started at CMC, I really didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know very much about the school before I was accepted. I applied regular decision, waited until I heard back from all the schools I applied to and then tried to make as informed of a decision as I could. I hadn’t toured. I didn’t know anyone who had gone to the 5Cs. So naturally, I was completely terrified on...