It was a Sunday afternoon and I was heading to campus from my childhood home in Syracuse. I’ll spare you the agony of explaining why, but I was having one of those rock-bottom days that often follows a night on Marshall, when one too many fish bowls were consumed. I pulled up to a red light and there, on the corner, was a high school classmate of mine. Nowadays, he seems to be as much a part of that corner as the street sign that loomed above.

While I was wallowing in my own nonsense, his realities had long since hardened him like cement.

In Syracuse, about half of our children are born into economic despair. In a Syracuse.com commentary, Mayor Stephanie Miner, citing trends of faltering economic mobility, described a crushing likelihood: “a child born today at 919 S. State St. will live her entire life in poverty.”

While difficult to hear, such frankness is necessary in civic discussions and is all too often missing. Take for example the transcript of the last GOP debate — the word “poverty” was mentioned once.

In academia, the way we discuss poverty feels dehumanized and terms like “inequality” bounce off of me. What hits me instead are the harsh truths and subtle realities; children who are born closest to the Carrier Dome are probably the least likely to ever attend a game. Too many of my former classmates spend their days on corners.

Still, good things are undoubtedly happening in Syracuse. You can feel the energy downtown and you can see the physical progress. In many ways, our university remains a shining city on the hill.

On campus, we can serve ourselves and our city by confronting the challenges and struggles at our doorstep. We harbor a wide range of talent in fields that are so profoundly connected to potential solutions, such as education, political science, communications, nutrition and business. It seems to me that we can — and ought to — do more to focus our attention on these pressing issues.

The realities of our neighbors should be the topic of more lectures, conversations and thought. Reinforcing this belief is the Athenian Oath, engraved outside of the Maxwell Auditorium, which reminds us to “unceasingly seek to quicken the sense of public duty” and to “transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”

Liam Kirst
Political Science ’16

Published on February 10, 2016 at 12:40 am