The alley is a thoroughfare. A shortcut through the block, two minutes shaved off your Dunkin’ or CVS trip, a direct route from point A to B. But it wasn’t always.
Those of us who were Emerson students before spring 2024 remember what the alley meant to our campus. It was a space for gathering, community, and celebration.
There were barbecues in the alley. Student organizations regularly tabled bake sales and fundraisers between classes and on weekends. The alley didn’t divide one half of campus from the other; it conjoined them. It was a bridge, and an important part of campus life. There was a time when the alley felt like it belonged to us, before we knew in so many words that it is technically Boston city property and therefore subject to local bylaws.
That time is gone. The Class of 2028 and beyond will never know an alley that hasn’t been stained with blood. They’ll never know an administration that wasn’t distrusted for its failure to protect students. The alley has become the most visible symbol of how much our campus has changed in the past year, but the fractures extend far beyond it.
These divides aren’t necessarily permanent, but they may as well be, given the lack of will to repair them. The college’s half-baked attempts at community healing through initiatives like EmersonTogether are bound for failure as long as the college refuses to address the issues that caused these fractures in the first place.
It is impossible to mend a campus torn by their passion for justice with blanket neutrality. We may never again know an Emerson campus that feels whole—not while the Trump administration targets marginalized student communities, not while the college clings to institutional neutrality.
It is also impossible to mend a campus that doesn’t want to come together. Most of us are only here for four years—it’s hard to imagine a significantly improved campus culture in such a short time. So hard, in fact, that it often feels like it’s not even worth the effort. It can seem more practical to take what you need from Emerson—classes, references, professional experience—earn your degree, and move on. Why try to fix something that is so easy to ignore?
Because we remember what it used to be. We remember what it felt like to attend a college that cared for its students, a college we could love without having to add a disclaimer every time. There is no way to turn back the clock, no way to fully restore Emerson’s campus culture from before the 118 arrests in the alley, before “interim” free speech restrictions, before international student visas were revoked. But that doesn’t mean nothing can change.
To many, the alley is just an alley. To Emerson students, it’s the heart of our campus. This academic year, that heart has felt cold. And if the college continues on its current path, that feeling will persist. Eventually, we will graduate, and our memories of Emerson will forever be marked by the administration’s cool indifference and the fractured community it created.
But it doesn’t have to end there. Change is still possible. Students still show up for their friends and classmates through thick and thin—the Emerson spirit is still alive, if subdued by three semester’s worth of disillusionment from the college itself. With time and accountability from leadership, Emerson can rebuild trust. We can rebuild community. We can rebuild a place where students feel valued and trusted by their peers, faculty, and the administration.
It won’t be easy, but we owe it to ourselves and the students that will come after us to believe that a better Emerson is still worth fighting for.
