<p>This is in response to the question of whether a liberal student will enjoy going to UR.</p>
<p>I am a UR alum – but I graduated in the mid 1980s. I was one of a few progressive and outspoken students at the school. I was a transfer into my junior year. I felt like my best friends there were professors who liked me for being different and serious about my politics. (And I like Richmond for those polisci and journalism profs.) But I had a lot of good experiences there, and was very glad to be there even though it was so conservative and Republican. I co-founded a group called the Campus Peace Forum that a lot of faculty and staff supported, and some students got involved with. </p>
<p>Looking back, though, sometimes I don’t know how I stood it. I wrote so much in the Collegian about the conservative & business orientation of the school that the paper labeled me “Public Enemy No. 1” in one of its lists and said, “Would you please stop complaining?” But the things I wrote probably were appearing daily in a school like Oberlin’s student paper. (Some professors congratulated me for the honor of being so criticized.)</p>
<p>So if you really do like arguing with conservatives (and if Richmond is still much like it was, which I suspect may be true), then you will have your fill at the school. Otherwise, I’d stay away.</p>
<p>I think there’s still an Amnesty International chapter there.</p>
<p>Also, I never heard of or saw anyone ever identify themselves as gay while I was there. Diversity of any kind was not to be found there, as far as I could tell.</p>
<p>I took my daughter on a tour of UR this summer and felt like Rip van Winkle. Physically it has changed a fair amount. But it still seemed much the same. I could be wrong, though. I am thrilled at UR’s international studies program.</p>