I want to be proud of the school I attend, but that feels impossible right now. I am not happy to be so intertwined with Emerson. I feel like I can’t speak up—because of my position as a resident assistant, the interim policy for campus demonstrations, SEAL’s new political posting policies, and on and on and on. I know I’m not alone in this (see Kylie Morgan’s piece on demonstration policies, Rumsha Siddiqui’s opinion about student journalism at Emerson, or Maddie Barron’s article about the continued movement). 

When I left campus for the summer, I moved back to my hometown, Shreveport, Louisiana. If you have ever been, you know that it is different from Boston in every way possible; you’re more likely to see a Confederate flag than a Palestinian one. It was a stark contrast to the Popular University Encampment that occupied Boylston Place Alley. 

As one of the Beacon reporters that covered the encampment and subsequent arrests, I never fully processed the experience. As a publication, we gained national attention and praise for our reporting. But for what? We really felt the weight of the term “student journalist.” I watched my friends get arrested while I was live tweeting updates. 

And then I went home. I regrettably felt a relief in getting to leave Emerson for a few months. Physically moving 1,600 miles meant no one understood what our campus had gone through on April 25. 

But after a summer away from Emerson, I was desperate to move back to Boston. My excitement specifically surrounded seeing my friends and returning to a place that I had considered a home away from home. I needed to leave the South and be back with people who understood me.

So now we’re all back—minus the estimated 200 person drop in enrollment this year, evident in the two entire floors of Little Building that lack freshmen. But this is not the Emerson that many of us agreed to attend. What once was a campus overflowing with life and community now feels emptier and quieter.

We all chose Emerson College for a reason: not because of the restrictive campus protest policies or because it has one of the worst financial aid programs in the country. I chose Emerson because of the people—the professors, not higher administration. I want to learn journalism from experienced journalists, and Emerson’s journalism department offers renowned journalists from The Washington Post, NBC, and The Boston Globe, just to name a few. And they are in Boston, not Louisiana, so I feel compelled to be here. 

I uprooted my life last year for Emerson College, and now I feel like I’m in too deep to leave. I work for Emerson in multiple ways, and I love being an editor for The Beacon. I love the family I have found at Emerson, and I could not imagine transferring or attending any other university. 

While I feel suffocated at Emerson this semester, there have also been moments that remind me why I’m still here. I’m currently taking a religions course and an evolution of queer identity course, and they constantly remind me that I am at Emerson for a reason. I could not be having the complex, productive conversations about religion or queer history that I’m having if I had stayed in the South. 

Freedom of expression feels stifled right now, but there are still times it shines through. I’ve found class discussions veering into discussions about Emerson’s new policies and what that means. I’ve seen the different events happening around campus, and they give me hope that there are still spaces on campus to talk freely. 

We have all put so much into this college: our physical time, our energy, our money. And Emerson has only continued to take from us—our voices, our rights, our passion. I think it’s time we take it back. Bring back the community this campus worked so hard to build at the encampment. 

Something that has been on my mind since the RA/OL training in early August was when, in a session, we were told that we are Emerson College. It was said in the sense of “you are Emerson College, you are hired to represent this school.” But it means more than that. We are Emerson College in the sense that Emerson needs us. Emerson is us. 

When Emerson College was not there for us in the alley on April 25, RAs stayed up all night bringing students back to residential halls. Students and staff were in 172 Tremont for days, being the first point of contact for students after they were bailed out. Emerson College—not cops, not higher administration, but the community—created an online inventory of every item retrieved from the alley—cell phones, laptops, bags, blankets, tents, clothes—and tirelessly reconnected those things back to their owners. Students charged abandoned cellphones and answered calls to get them back to the owners. And all Emerson College did was take credit for posting bail when that came out of staff’s pockets. 

I want to see that passion again. I don’t want our campus pushed to the level of brokenness we experienced in spring, but I want campus life back. I want joint living back. I want to walk through the alley and hear beautiful poetry and songs being performed. I want to walk through dorm halls and see people’s personalities and beliefs displayed on their doors. I want people to write about Palestine freely without being targeted by students or faculty for their beliefs. 

If you feel like you need to leave Emerson—because of last semester, the previous semester, the financial aid, or any other way they have failed us—I support that. But if you’ve decided to stay after everything, please make it worth your while. We all are spending too much money to be here to not enjoy it. 

We are Emerson College. Let’s build it back to a school we are proud to claim.