The College of Wooster

The college President Bolton and the administration holds on to outdated values about education, student life, and campus in general. While admin chairs receives 6 figure salaries, my freshman dorm didn't have heat for 2 months. Housing gaslit me and my roommate for this when our thermometer showed is was 65F in the Ohio winter. My sophomore year dorm had bats in the bathroom, and is known for multiples to get caught each year. That should not be common knowledge about your dorm conditions. I should mention no AC in the summer either.

If you're not a white guy, you're not safe on campus. Females get sexually harassed. Minorities get physical objects like mugs and fish thrown at them. Security doesn't pursue anyone or work much with the police. A placid email about how student safety is important to the campus while outlining the incident doesn't help anyone. It just instills more fear and anxiety to students when there isn't a solution or follow up to the incident.

Instead, security turns rooms upside down based on reports of "weed smells", call the cops, get you arrested, and follow up with multiple meetings. Since the campus banned alcoholic parties, everything went underground and dangerous. Frats drug and rape women. Alcohol poisoning is common and weed is just all over the place. Is this a healthy environment for students to let off steam? No, but it is the only social scene they've got unless they want to drink and drive from cleveland/columbus.

The theater department is atrocious and not minority friendly either. Most of the profs have favorites that white(or passing) and black students, and the rest of the minorities are left on our own. You can tell they don't like you based on:

-one-sentenced email responses or zero responses
-Forgotten meetings and no apology/acknowledgement when confronted/emails
- No networking chances, even though favorites got to go to lunch with guest artists and extended meetings.

- No respect for students and treated as "less than"
-Vague feedback that lacks critique
- No discussion about your thesis/IS topic what so ever
-didn't show up for thesis exhibition
Furthermore, being difficult to coordinate partnered events with its own academic honorary society while I was involved. I had to talk, research, and ask for funding, to make one event happen without help when asked if a partnered event should happen. I ran everything myself while the department chair/advisor sat and watched. Funny enough, now he's using that society for partnerships now that I'm gone.

The casting of plays itself is questionably racist too. The crucible's only black cast was the slave. Arguing to racially cast based on "accuracy", is still racists and outdated with a white director. It is still a piece written in the 50s and the slave was written to depict black people badly. Again, the same director casted the only black cast was the "monster" in Shakespeare's Tempest.

These types of passive aggressive behaviors is prevalent throughout the campus. White people act like a "savior" and make it a huge deal when I ask them for something, as if it was a big favor. IS asking a prof an in-depth question after class that big of a deal? Then don't be a professor. I felt nothing but disrespect my last two years in the department. Ignoring my questions in and out of class, talking to students as if we're less than.

People with PhDs treating students like children, picking and choosing to excel as professors for specific students, showing and defending racist choices isn't very liberal or fair for academia. Why doesn't the school do anything? Thats because the school also participates in this fake "woke allyship" to brag about the campus/employee diversity. They encourage students to protest and report racism, but nothing is done with those with power to stop it/prevent it from happening again.Ivy league PhDs doesn't unteach one's ego and power-hungry issues.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

What the school presents to prospective students compared to what campus life is actually like is night and day. I felt like I was duped after entering. The campus is cliquey and you're gonna feel isolated and lonely without a strong support-system with friends. The social scene doesn't exist due to administration and security choosing to focus on busting kids and calling cops. Meanwhile, I've reported myself getting stalked, harassed, and physical objects thrown at me in the street. They don't even bother following up my report with an email. They're not here in the interest of students. They're here to self-sooth their power hungry egos.

The dorms are outdated, lack AC and sometimes broken heat that is ignored by housing for two months (experienced my freshman year). Constant bats in bathrooms while showering with plastic sheets used as dividers- and little privacy.

The theater department is not just cliquey, the professors all have favorites. They prefer white(looking) and black students over other minorities. This favoritism is proven by the why they behave and respond to us. I couldn't get more than a single-sentence email responses to in-depth questions, or they never answer. I ask question in-person and they conveniently always have a meeting to go to. The one time I asked for networking connections (loosely connected to theater) the prof refused and made up a lame excuse to avoid contact details. If you don't actually know someone, don't talk about them like you're friends or do your job to help a student's career. In comparison, this same prof provided lunch-meetings and extended one-on-one time with a guest artist with his preferred students. When confronting all this behavior, they decided gaslighting my feelings were appropriate instead. It seems like getting you're PhD from cornell doesn't teach profs empathy or how to treat people with respect. No prof is ever professional in my eyes if you're going to be this deliberate with your favoritism.

They've deliberately setup to sabotage my IS and several others over the years. The department spent 6 weeks telling me to rework my thesis proposal for the upcoming year. But, still couldn't hold a meeting with my advisor about it to make it work. Instead, they decided after spending 6 weeks for a solution-they gave me one week to come up with basic thesis not related to anything I was proposing. So, other students worked and reworked their thesis based on a project they wanted and well-received by the theater department since the start of the semester, and I had only the final week of the academic year to come up with a thesis. It's no surprise my advisor barely gave me guidance or critiques or even talk about my thesis ever. It was clear he didn't want to work with me and didn't even bother to come to my thesis exhibition. I also didn't get a choice in advisors like other departments due to the lack of faculty there. I hated my experience and my project. I don't recommend wooster to anyone, the quality of education for the price, unprofessionally behaving professors, questionable housing, and fearing for your safety isn't worth the 60k price tag.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

The administration appears to be living in the dark ages. I've seen less interference in students' social lives at the Jesuit schools. There are no parties at all. People try to smoke weed but possession or paraphernalia will get your room turned upside down if someone reports smoke smell and then it is an automatic arrest and court appearance, most probably a license loss. Did I mention there are no parties? I transferred after freshman year as did four of my friends. Worst school ever. I heard they might get acquired by one of the larger universities. It could be the best thing because no one wants to go here and they can't keep fooling people forever.

1st Year Male -- Class 1921

Faculty Accessibility: B, Social Life: F