The day I came back to Conn from winter vacation, I noticed a sign in the window of a house on Williams Street that read in splashy font, “New London Loves USCG.” I couldn’t help it—a huge smile broke across my face. Something about that poster felt so right. I looked it up and learned that the New London City Center District spearheaded the United States Coast Guard (USCG)-appreciation movement, which began in January and culminated, appropriately, on Valentine’s Day. Connecticut College and the Coast Guard Academy are such different institutions that, to a certain extent, it doesn’t make sense to compare them. Still, the gesture got me thinking: why is Conn’s relationship with New London so radically different from the Coast Guard’s?
Back in 1909, Wesleyan officially closed its doors to female students. Two years later, Connecticut College was founded in part as a response to Wesleyan’s act of exclusion; now, 101 years later, the college continues to expand and improve what began as Connecticut College for Women in 1911. The story of the birth of Conn College is nothing short of miraculous—according to Conn’s website, “The state required a $100,000 investment from the city to ensure that the proposal would succeed. And the city had to deliver in ten days.
New Londoners answered the challenge…by digging into their own pockets, exceeding the goal by $35,000.” In other words, the beginnings of Connecticut College as we now know it—the land, buildings and most of the residential halls—was borne out of the excitement and generosity of New Londoners.
Over the course of the past century, since that original act of charity by the residents of New London, a divide has grown between downtown New London and the campus on the hill. It seems that this issue is only exacerbated by the perception of a divide that’s perhaps bigger than it really is—so big, maybe, that individual students feel it’s too much to tackle on their own. This tension is not unique to Connecticut College and its students, nor to New London and its residents; otherwise, there wouldn’t be a widely-used term like “town and gown” to describe the gulf between a university and the town that houses it.
Conn students who also happen to be New London residents acknowledge the difference between Conn and the New London community.
“When I first came here, it was like a different universe,” said Zakiya Thomas-Keyton ’15, who has lived and gone to school in New London all her life. “It’s not the New London I grew up in.” She alluded to the fact that many non-New Londoner Conn students seem to hold extreme opinions of the city. “When I tell people I live in New London, I went to Williams and now I go here, they either say, ‘That’s so cool!’ or ‘Wow, that sucks.’”
She also described experiencing a lack of contact between New London and Conn, at least before she enrolled here. “It’s not like we ever saw Conn kids. Most people who live in New London never think about Conn.”
Conn’s location is one of the primary factors contributing to the New London and Conn “town/gown” divide. Unlike some other small liberal arts colleges, Conn’s campus is a sizable distance from the heart of the city. It’s certainly possible to get from Cro to the Bean & Leaf on foot, but walking is essentially a last-ditch, desperate option.
Upperclassmen with cars easily bridge the gap between on-campus and off-campus life, but many students don’t have cars, and a new rule that started with the class of 2015 states that freshmen aren’t allowed to bring their cars to campus. That leaves most students with few other options, including the Camel Van, which can be erratic and only visits specific locations, and taxi services, which can also be unreliable and are indisputably expensive. The point is that it’s difficult for many Conn students to get off campus with any frequency or regularity, which does little to help Conn’s “campus-on-the-hill” image.
When Conn students do make their way downtown, it’s often to drink. I met with a former employee of two different bars in New London to talk about her time as a bartender and manager. She’s a resident of New London and currently works at another bar downtown, which she says makes a point not to advertise to Conn students – they use ID scanners and don’t offer specials to students.
She told me about the fine line between profit and problems: “Everyone wants [Conn students’] money, but they are a huge liability.” The instances of bad behavior at the bars where she used to work are memorable: tales of fights between students and New London locals, students climbing on the roof of the bar and helping themselves to entire bottles of liquor behind the counter.
In the same interview, though, she also described the close relationships she formed with many students. “They called me by my first name. They treated me like a human being. They introduced their parents to me on Parents’ Weekend.”
Still, at the end of the day, “lots of kids were flat-out assholes. I was just the idiot bartender. Some would use their parents credit cards and then the tip section of the check would be a big ‘zero’.”
She gestured to the kitchen where we were sitting, shrugged, and said, “Tips are how I make my living.”
Money undoubtedly defines at least a portion of the New London-Conn relationship. “We do feel a little underappreciated,” said one storeowner in downtown New London. “Maybe this is just me, but I feel like Conn kids gravitate toward the Mystic/Stonington area to eat and shop, especially with their parents. It’s not like they are obligated to do everything in New London, but there are so many cool restaurants and little shops downtown to support.”
Still, hundreds of Conn students—regardless of whether they support local businesses—work and volunteer in local programs on a daily basis. This is the work that often goes unseen by New London residents unless they’re directly involved in participating organizations. The Office of Volunteers for Community Services (OVCS) is the main campus organization that places students in community service positions in the New London area. According to the OVCS website, approximately 38% of [Conn] students participate in the community/service-learning opportunities. Through OVCS, Conn students can get involved in some of the most influential New London organizations, including the Garde Arts Center, the HygienicGallery, the Drop-In Learning Center and the New London Day.
The tireless work of those involved in OVCS has helped strengthen the relationship between the college and New London. Even though our campus is separate from the heart of the city, we make up a part of the New London community.
New London has done something unique in thanking the Coast Guard for the role it plays in our area. If we follow the city’s example, we can thank New London right back for all it has provided to the history of the college and all it continues to provide in our off-campus life. All the city wants is a little love. •
