A Plead for Dickinsonians

Imagine you are sitting in class, surrounded by your classmates. You pull out your laptop to start taking notes as the professor begins his lecture. In the midst of discussing the format of your upcoming exam, there’s a large explosion. Everyone looks out the window to see a part of the school destroyed due to a missile explosion. People haphazardly run towards the only exit in the lecture hall in an attempt to escape what will probably be the next destination of another missile.

Imagine that your financial aid did not exist, but you didn’t have parents to fall back on. Would you still go to Dickinson? Would you start working numerous jobs to raise money? Who would help you? What if all of Carlisle was destroyed, so you could not find a job even if you wanted to?

Imagine you are living alone in a refugee camp along with your younger siblings. Your parents are off in the city of some European country, where you do not know the language or complexities of the society. You must take care of your siblings each day, protecting them and whatever small valuables you were able to salvage from your home. There is no time or opportunity to go to school, as the camp definitely does not have a school set up and the country’s universities won’t take you due to the lack of documentation, university transcripts, recommendation letters and more.

Syrian students experience these issues every day that most of us can never imagine. Sure, America is plagued with shootings around schools, from the primary to the university level, but the chances of dying by firearm are around 1 in 25,000. Compare that statistic to one in four schools in Syria being attacked due to the crisis, or that more than half the number of schools that were attacked worldwide in the past four years (8,428) were in Syria. America has not experienced a civil war since 1865. No one alive today, in America, can relate to what it is like to live in such strife and constant fear of danger. These students have suffered numerous losses in their lives – their government’s stability, their family members and friends, their homes and now their schools.

I have always been taught that education will open endless doors for an individual, for the most part, no matter what their race/ethnicity, sexual preference, socioeconomic status, religion or gender are. It has been instilled as a value that I want to also give my children because I do not think I would be who I am today if it were not for education’s constant presence throughout my life. The thought of not having the option to go to college is truly something I have a hard time wrapping my head around. It is even harder for me to imagine why people would not help or advocate for people to come to college.

If Dickinson wants to continue being known as an institution that is “revolutionary” with a “global vision that permeates the entire student experience,” it will not think twice about accepting Syrian students into our community. Although I understand the implications of possibly hosting an entire family in a home that would be funded by the college, I believe there is no excuse for not acquiring some form of a scholarship for Syrian students. Even if we did not give full-rides, flights, visa help, etc. there are options. For example, nearby Elizabethtown College decided on five scholarships of $25,000 for four years. Although I do not know how they expect people, who could have been displaced from their homes for almost four years now, to muster up $25,000, this is still a step in the right direction. I am pretty convinced that Dickinson is capable of taking similar measures, if not a couple of steps above and beyond.

For all of these reasons, I plead the Dickinson community to consider signing the Books Not Bombs petition. If you can strip these students of every quality that may make you want to separate them from Dickinsonians or keep them away from our campus, you cannot deny the fact that, like you, these are people who simply want a college education. That is truly the one undeniable factor in this entire conversation.