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I am the subject of my own experiences. I directly perceive objects from my point of view alone and can only infer other perspectives by reasoning from my own. At the same time, my experiences take place in a world inhabited by other beings who are also the subject of their own experiences, to which my inferences can only approximate. Since inference proceeds from evidence, I can better approximate the lived experience of other beings by using a better array of evidence. It is the array of evidence, an ordered collection of data, not an individual piece of evidence, that improves my approximation. On average, an individual piece of evidence is insufficient. “Knowing” that birds in general do not perform as well as adult humans in problem-solving tests does not let me approximate the intelligence of the gull in front of me. Therefore, what matters is comprehensive data. 

Human exceptionalism crumbles under a comprehensive evaluation. Human exceptionalism is the belief that humankind is an exception to everything that surrounds us, and is closely related to anthropocentrism, the belief that we are at the center of the world. Anthropocentrism has its roots spanning from the Judeo-Christian tradition to the current technocratic culture and has enabled humankind to exploit the lives of non-human animals at an astronomical scale. 

More than 90,000 cattle are slaughtered daily in the United States alone, along with 300,000 pigs and 23 million chickens, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. The live weight of cattle slaughtered in 2026 is between 1,410 and 1,470 pounds; a conservative estimate of 35 percent packaged beef per-live-weight yields 44.4 million pounds from cattle slaughtered each day. Since the standard serving size for beef is four ounces at its raw weight, we can estimate that around 177.6 million servings of beef are produced daily. This is in addition to 49 million servings of hog meat and 100.2 million servings of chicken. 

The justification for our mass slaughtering of non-human animals lies in human exceptionalism. To be precise, we first began exploiting animals because our technology allowed it and secondarily searched for grounds in human exceptionalism. The thesis of human exceptionalism would suggest that humans alone possess certain superior abilities, namely the ability to reason abstractly and act as moral agents. 

But, this thesis is challenged by experiments where animals demonstrate cognitive abilities or features that have been thought to belong exclusively to humans. Speaking of avians alone, a 2020 paper by neuroscientists Onur Güntürkün and colleagues at Ruhr University Bochum, “The surprising organisation of avian brains,” reported that pigeons and barn owls have a “layered, corticallike organization” that resembles the “layerlike and columnar organization” of the human neocortex. This is striking considering that the neocortex is a six-layered structure thought to belong exclusively to mammals, and that the human neocortex is thought to be superior to other mammals’ because it takes up the highest proportion of the brain. 

Another paper, “A neural correlate of sensory consciousness in a corvid bird,” was published in 2020 by a group at the University of Tübingen experimenting on carrion crows. The crows were trained to tilt their head when a red light followed a gray light, but not when a blue light followed a gray light. They were also trained to tilt their head when a blue light was shown without a gray light preceding it and not to tilt when a red light was shown alone. The crows were able to correctly tilt their heads in response to the specific stimulus even when the gray light was shown at an intensity below what they can sense. The researchers argue for an “avian consciousness,” and that “more and more pillars of human exceptionalism” have fallen over time. 

Under a comprehensive evaluation, we can take these experiments as challenges to human exceptionalism; they are evidence that birds are constituted in a way that makes consciousness a possibility. Surely, we should define what consciousness means, but if we include under its heading the ability to act toward an interest, and in the case of carrion crows, the ability to categorize those interests, the discovery must change how we interact with birds. 

In the campus setting, this could mean leaving a cup of water outside in the summer so that a bird can rehydrate itself before carrying on its day, or keeping a curtain down to prevent them from inadvertently striking into the window. More broadly, we can also change our behavior by trying out the vegan options widely available in the dining halls.

 

 

~ Benjamin Ha `27

Since enrolling at Colby and beginning my freshman semester in the fall of 2025, I’ve spent considerable time thinking about what it means to be a student here. Not in a social sense or an academic capacity, rather what it means to be a number in this mass of roughly 2,500 students. I am part of a demographic. A digit. A data point — and while this may be a seemingly detached way of viewing my identity, data is vital. 

So, let’s be objective for a moment. Turn the 2,500 faces at Colby into data points. 2,500 data points sorted into categories. Categories for race, gender, first-generation student status, or median family income. Now turn those data points back into faces. 2,500 people from different upbringings, different homes, different family trees, different lifestyles, different political ideologies, different experiences, and different thoughts. 

Thoughts. Those are important, because thoughts are what reduce regurgitation of information and spawn real, intellectual, challenge. Thoughts force us to wrestle with our intuitions, our stereotypes, our learned tendencies. Diverse thought is why I picked a liberal arts college. It’s why I seek education at all. It’s how I prepare myself for the world. 

On Sept. 14, Colby’s President, David A. Greene, released an official notice entitled “Navigating Higher Education’s Challenges.” He opened with the following: “For decades, I have started my mornings by reading press reports on higher education. In recent years, the volume of stories has exploded — with rarely a positive story to be found.”

Greene alleges that at Colby, we are inclined to interpret these publicized complications surrounding post-secondary education with “cognitive dissonance.” In truth, Colby isn’t perfect — and while my experience does not necessarily reflect the experiences of the 2,500 other students who attend, I’d venture to say that my data point is not an outlier. But rather than extrapolate, let me speak for myself. 

The privilege of participating in higher education is that you learn to think — to disagree, to argue, to be steadfast and considered in your opinions. But also, to follow truth — to be open and objective enough to rearrange our ideas and change perspectives. In service of this last point, I’ve organized the following analysis to be loyal to the facts. Facts inform these opinions. Facts have altered my perception of Colby — for better and worse. And facts have established, quite verifiably, that “cognitive dissonance” is far from the issue when fairly judging Colby’s role in American collegiate learning. 

Admittedly, Colby has access to an abundance of resources. President Greene’s praise for the College’s academic network is well-founded. My objection to Greene’s statement lies instead in a constant effort, spearheaded by the College’s administration, to prove that Colby is separate. To suggest that our explicit expenditures or monetary investments somehow prove we are perfect or exempt us from engaging in and benefitting from the slew of problems in higher education. If anything, there is one significant aspect of Colby that serves to systematically reproduce pedagogical and societal inequalities — the College is not need blind.

In 2017, The New York Times published a study on economic diversity and student outcomes at various universities. The examination included data from Raj Chetty’s “Mobility Report Cards” which found Colby was among a small number of American institutions consisting of more students from the top one percent than the bottom 60 percent. 

Chetty’s figures are frequently cited as evidence of higher education’s classism. However, referencing these statistics as cause for institutional transformation introduces some issues, primarily of relevance. The study, published nearly a decade ago, represents graduates from the class of 2013. But in recent years, Colby’s financial aid package has changed significantly. 

The concern lies not necessarily in the aid packages Colby grants its students, rather in the number of students it admits on aid packages. Need-blind admissions can significantly improve this.

Bowdoin and Amherst, also NESCAC schools, are need blind. Like Colby, these colleges enroll approximately one-fifth of their class from the top one percent. Where Colby differs is in its admission of the top 20 percent, enlisting on average 12.5 percent more students than Bowdoin and Amherst. Need-blind admissions aren’t a strain on economic scope; they simply create a better financial balance.

Colby trails Bowdoin and Amherst in the percentage of Pell Grant students from the class of 2029. More than half of Bowdoin’s class and 61 percent of Amherst’s receive aid, in comparison to 42 percent of Colby’s. In general, financial support increases the matriculation of middle-class students; not only do more low-income families attend need-blind peer institutions, but a greater number of working-class families as well. 

According to Inside Higher Ed, after Hamilton went need-blind in 2010, its Pell share rose by four percent and students of color by approximately six percent. In 2021, when WashU began need-blind admissions, its share of families earning between $75,000 and $200,000 increased by six percent. By contrast, following Wesleyan’s removal of need blind admissions in 2012, the college’s percentage of Pell scholars, first generation students, and people of color each fell by two percent.

This graph was created by Claude AI using information fed from Inside Higher Ed and WashU’s paper, Student Life. 

Consider Hamilton’s funding model as a case study. According to data published by Hamilton, after pledging to go need-blind in 2010, trustees contributed $500,000 each, and the college paid an estimated extra $2 million in aid each year. Though Hamilton’s endowment per student is larger, Colby’s failure to enact need-blind admissions isn’t a question of funding, but of resource allocation. 

Within the past decade, Colby built a $200 million athletic center, a $95 million creative and performing arts building, a $26 million hotel, and in December of 2025, the Dare Northward Campaign exceeded one billion dollars. Compare that to Hamilton, an institution of similar endowment, which successfully implemented a need-blind agenda. Colby has the resources.

But why should we care? Surely there are obvious moral complications for non-need-blind policies. Admissions that fail to account for finances inordinately grant human capital to individuals with greater monetary wealth, fostering a vicious cycle which excludes qualified individuals from attending university and creates significant barriers to economic success.

Yet there is another reason we should ask more of our institutions: thought. Need-blind policies bring diversity and diversity brings thought. 

After the Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative action ruling, colleges can no longer directly consider race in their class makeup. Socioeconomic strategies such as need-blind admissions are one of the few remaining legal tools with which our institutions can foster racial heterogeneity. 

Let’s return to Colby’s 2,500 data points. Data points that are classified by gender, income, ethnicity, sexuality, and/or ancestry. Now, consider the data points we’ve forgotten. All too often we build structures that fail to account for the inequities our systems propagate. We overlook and regenerate biases that feed uniformity.

Secondary learning necessitates need-blind admissions because dissimilarity matters. Data points translate to outcomes, human connection, conversations, disagreement, and commonality. Different people produce different thoughts, and thought is what higher education requires. 

Colby College isn’t prioritizing thought.

 

 

~ Maya Corrie `29