Today I learned Macalester College is supporting their international students to stay in the United States this summer, in order to mitigate their fears that they would not be able to re-enter and continue their studies if they go home between terms. Both the college and the surrounding community have pooled resources to take care of these students.

As far as I can tell, Macalester is helping their international students not because they are compelled by law, not in order to raise money, not because it helps their college rankings, and not because it makes them look good. Indeed, the news of their generosity isn’t even on their website; I can’t find it anywhere, at least as of this moment. I learned about this good deed from an email newsletter of the Chronicle of Higher Education, the main trade journal of the industry.

Macalester is helping their international students this summer because it’s the right thing to do. Imagine that.

Meanwhile, yesterday Carnegie Mellon University hosted Trump, who is destroying the ability of students from around the world to study in the US, who is throttling funding from the sciences and the arts, and who is threatening to shutter the most prominent universities in order to silence all of them.

Having worked at Carnegie Mellon for seventeen years, I know how the university operates. I concur with this professor that CMU is image conscious “beyond comprehension and beyond the bounds of what universities used to be about, which was the interaction of civil discourse … If it’s just a private sort of a corporate brain-think with no opportunity for question and answer … maybe a university campus isn’t the right place for it.”

What a world of difference between these two institutions. They both have Scottish roots — tartans in their logos, bagpipes at their ceremonies, Scottish animals as their mascots. But in their hearts, how very different.

I am so happy to be free of Carnegie Mellon. I am so proud our eldest will study this fall at Macalester.