Jonathan Shazar: Left with the bitter taste of spin

A little more than a year ago, I was working feverishly to make sure that last year's edition of this page became a reality. It isn't easy trying to coordinate and cajole a group of students about to leave the University for good into sitting down and coming up with what is arguably the hardest type of column to write -- that of the "farewell" variety. There's too much left that they want to do, too many last-minute plans and the drunken debauchery of Senior Week to keep them busy.

Owing to my generosity of spirit -- I offered a spot to basically anyone who had spent any amount of time at the DP during their four (or five) years -- I had the absolute pleasure of editing nine of these suckers last year. It is not something I'd happily go through again.

It isn't difficult to see why these columns are so hard to write. Everyone wants to go out with a bang. They want to talk about what a great place Penn is, how much they've learned (both inside and outside of the classroom, of course) and how much fun they've had. They want to work in anecdotes and stories, and they want to come up with some sort of gimmick that can tie that hodgepodge together. They want to be clever and wise, sentimental but not too sentimental, funny, poignant and gracious all at once.

Needless to say, these grand plans almost never pan out. Inspiration is a rare bird, and nine times out of 10, these columns tend toward the self-important, the insipid, the overwrought. The columnists' parents and friends may gush with pride, but most will not find them to be great reading.

I don't want to write one of these columns, not only because I find them repulsively saccharine and unfulfilling, but because I don't think that I can. To pen a portrait of a wonderfully rosy four years at this school would, at least for me, be the height of dishonesty. It would force me to ignore the fact that I was so unhappy freshman year that I came within an inch of transferring.

Moreover, it would force me to ignore the fact that much of what almost caused me to make such an extreme move remains unchanged. And now that Stephen Glass, that infamous former DP executive editor, liar and journalistic villain, has emerged from his shell the same week a young reporter brought disgrace to the world's most august and respected newspaper, I'd like to do my part to keep things honest.

I've come to learn during my two years as an editor at this paper that when it comes to Penn, the truth all too frequently hurts. The University has developed a system of information control that would be very much at home in the Bush White House. The truth about what goes on around here is held so tightly to the vest of the highest administrators and released only in carefully manipulated little tidbits, it is not unreasonable to assume that Penn's leaders think that we can't handle the full, unmitigated truth.

Sometimes, I can almost understand why. It is almost impossible to justify that James M. Wilson, whose disastrous ethical lapses and craven pursuit of self-interest led directly to the death of an 18-year-old boy, remains on this esteemed faculty. It is hard to tell members of the student body already paying an outrageous sum that they must spend even more on awful food because Dining Services is so ineptly run. It is hard to defend Penn's exploitation of its graduate students and its insistence of "comparability with our peers" rather than a decent standard of living for its teaching assistants. Hiding behind misleading financial aid statistics is much cleaner than actually dealing with the problem of the underserved poor.

It is simply easier to imbue these things with a healthy dose of spin, even to tell a little white lie every now and again.

All of this cannot help but leave something of a bad taste in my mouth. It is a feeling that I will remember, along with all of the good times that I've had and all that I've learned.

Nothing is perfect, least of all the University of Pennsylvania. That is not to say that it is uniquely flawed; on the contrary, it seems to me that Penn is painfully ordinary in this regard.

I don't say any of this because I hate Penn, though those words have been known to cross my lips from time to time. But it does us no good to pretend that it is not an institution rife with problems. It is imperative that we remember the things we didn't like as well as those we did, for some members of the Class of 2003 will, no doubt, one day be in a position to help our alma mater make the changes it needs to.

I hope for better things at this school. I hope that future generations of Penn alumni will find that bad taste in their mouths less and less prominent.

Jonathan Shazar is a 2003 College graduate from Valley Stream, N.Y., and former editorial page editor and design editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian

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