Last weekend, my sister, Emily, graduated from Ohio University's greatest rival: Miami University. For three days, I put away my Muck Fiami T-shirts and enjoyed the change of scenery. Then, as I watched the graduation ceremony, I thought of where I was last spring.
At the end of my senior year of high school, I had two college acceptance letters on my desk, one from Miami and one from OU. I had eliminated all my other college choices and was now debating whether or not to become a RedHawk or a Bobcat.
When I visited both campuses, I learned that students at Miami and OU consider themselves polar opposites. Oxford is the land of popped collars and Starbucks; Athens is dotted with small coffee shops, secondhand stores and hippie types playing guitars on the College Green. Simply put, Miami is conservative and OU is liberal.
Now, I know that this generalization is not entirely accurate, and there are exceptions to every rule. But it does have a basis in the truth. Ohio University leans much further left than its rival-and that's part of the reason I chose to come here.
This may be surprising, because anyone who reads my column regularly knows that I'm an unabashed right-winger. When my college acceptance letters arrived last spring, my friends encouraged me to pick Miami. OU is just too liberal
they said. I agreed that I would feel comfortable in Oxford's conservative community. But was it the right place to study journalism?
Before college, I had spent my entire life in conservative-minded places. I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland and attended a traditional Catholic grade school for eight years and a Catholic high school for one year. When I was sixteen, my family moved to the heart of Bush country: suburban Houston, Texas. My county is one of the most heavily Republican areas in the nation -the real political races are usually between Republican candidates in the primaries. Once, my current events class hosted a war debate in which all but one student supported the Iraq war. As a conservative, my views were rarely challenged for several years.
I told a friend of mine that I would probably study journalism at Miami. She asked me how I planned to become a great journalist despite having virtually no contact with the other side of the political spectrum.
As I mulled over that question, I thought about my visits to both schools. When I toured OU, the campus was brimming with political passion. Flyers for an anti-war demonstration were stapled in the dorms and coffee shops. Students knew which professors were liberal and which were conservative. The list of politically-oriented clubs was long and diverse -everything from gay activists groups to the pro-life club.
I also realized that most of these things had been conspicuously absent from Miami.
After I spoke to some Miami students, it became clear that they were not simply conservative-many of them were apathetic. I got several comments like these: No we don't really talk about politics with our friends. We don't like to argue.
I don't think we've ever had an anti-war protest in Oxford.
College Republicans? Um yeah
we might have that.
A week later, I accepted admission to OU.
My freshman year of college will be over soon, and it's been interesting, to say the least. Before I left for college, some of my friends warned that I might be brainwashed by the Athens liberals, and a few were convinced I'd come home a registered Green. That hasn't happened. I'm still a conservative.
But I am challenged. I know that whenever I raise my hand in class to defend gun rights or abortion restrictions, someone will tell me I'm wrong. But rather than keeping quiet or changing my opinions, I've become smarter. I study political issues more in-depth so that I can support my argument in a debate. FOX News and Ann Coulter are no longer my primary sources of information. I now see the value of being exposed to the other side -a side that sometimes doesn't exist at uniformly conservative schools.
Miami is a great school with some strong programs, especially in business. However, I believe that OU is a better place for people like me who love writing and politics.
If you're liberal, you'll feel right at home. And if you're conservative, you'll be a stronger, more informed conservative when you graduate. OU won't turn you into a liberal. But at least you'll know how to argue with one.
-Ashley Herzog is a freshman journalism major. Send her an e-mail at ah103304@ohiou.edu.
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