In recent weeks, more than 2,000 people have been arrested and detained on college campuses across the country from taking part in student demonstrations against the war in Gaza. As pro-Palestinian student activism permeates university and college campuses across the nation, we are faced with a surprising silence on our own campus. This has become a pattern at Andover; in times of global conflict we often find ourselves immobilized in opening up a conversation or lost amid a puzzling silence. Whether it be in the classroom or amongst friends, we are afraid to be controversial, to be polarizing, to share our beliefs. Or, perhaps to simply admit that we do not understand what is going on, that we need to be educated. Even as we watch protests around the country and their responses radically question freedom of speech, the obligations of educational institutions to facilitate activism, the morality of endowment investments — all topics that are tied so closely to Andover — we still do not open up a dialogue on campus. This is becoming dangerous. As the Board, we do not share a unifying stance on the protests that we are seeing on the news, nor should we necessarily. Yet, we do agree on this: we must be discussing what is going on.
We often use the term the “Andover bubble” when referring to the dissonance between our own community and the rest of the world. While there are parts of this “bubble” that we cannot change, and oftentimes the bubble can be protective of us, we also must recognize when we are upholding barriers that have the potential to harm us. Oftentimes the bubble is created not by what we do or say, but when we choose to be silent. It would be naive to say that the Israel and Palestine student activism does not impact us as a student body. At the very least, we soon will be entering these institutions whose students are calling for change, whose campuses are housing encampments and protests. On our own campus, we are taught how to think critically and examine systems of power, but we stop at confronting the realities that surround us. Especially with current issues such as Israel and Palestine, there seems to be a common belief amongst Andover students that addressing controversial topics will jeopardize our lives here and beyond. To some extent, there is a chance it could, but this fear too often overshadows the need to have these conversations.
We cannot consider ourselves to be future leaders if we do not have the framework to approach the world around us. This is not a call for Andover to make a statement on the college and university activism nor for students to form concrete opinions, but rather to fulfill our mission: to educate and to be educated. In doing so, we build a foundation to create meaningful change, to advocate for what we believe in, and to prepare us for when we enter spaces outside Andover.
At Andover, we are privileged to exist in a bubble in which the devastating impacts of global conflicts often do not touch our lives directly. With the rigorous cadence of our academic, athletic, and extracurricular lives and the prospect of college perpetually looming on the horizon, we are swept into a sheltered existence that places our own future before the world around us. Tied to the expectations of our parents and the dreams of our younger selves, we find ourselves risk-averse, avoidant of anything that could upset our carefully crafted plans. We are afraid to be controversial, to be polarizing, to speak our minds. Particularly within a community like Andover’s that is much smaller and tight-knit compared to those of universities, conversations around highly charged topics that are far from black-or-white are difficult to initiate, not only for students, but for faculty as well. Yet such discussion is the foundation for ensuring students are adequately educated and made aware of pressing global issues that they will inevitably be exposed to regardless, whether through social media, news reports, or known contacts. Andover is a preparatory boarding school, and if it dares to live up to its name, it must cultivate and provide the space for proper education on the Israel-Hamas conflict. There is a world beyond this campus, and it will not wait for us to grow up.
