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Centrepiece Online | Fall 2009
A Portrait of Centre Alumni
By Beau Weston
Van Winkle Professor of Sociology
Early results from an extensive alumni survey by sociologist Beau Weston reveal an engaging portrait of Centre alumni.
He looked at classes from 1969 to 1994 (that is, 40 years out of college to 15 years out). The report is based on the first 1,400 responses (or 26 percent of the entire group).
Weston, who teaches a popular class on family life, is interested in how alumni raise their children, and, in particular, where their children go to college. “I am looking to see if the corporate managers and the professionals differ in their home culture and their children’s educational path,” he says. Ultimately, he hopes to “understand the culture of each college class fraction and how they compete with one another.”
What Most Centre Alumni Are Like
Let’s start with the path followed by at least half of the Centre College alumni.
Most came to college with at least one parent who had attended college. By the 1980s most students had two college-educated parents. Most studied social studies disciplines, with sizable minorities in the humanities and the sciences. Most joined a fraternity or sorority, played sports at least recreationally, and went to parties. They thought Centre gave them excellent academic training, gave them excellent relations with professors and friends, and was excellent overall. Most made at least a couple of lifelong friends at Centre.
After graduation they got a further degree in a work-related field. They work in the professions or for corporations, and most consider themselves professionals. Law is the leading profession, with 20 percent of the alumni earning a J.D. Almost half the alumni households have members in the legal, medical, or teaching professions. Most of the mothers stay home with the kids or work part time for a time. Two-thirds of Centre families make $100,000 or more, putting them in the top 15 percent income group nationally.
Centre alumni marry other college graduates, who also earned advanced degrees. It is a myth that most Colonels marry other Colonels, but about a fifth do, and overall a quarter met their spouse at or through Centre. They stay married—79 percent are in their first marriage, which rises to 84 percent of those with children. They have two-plus kids. Their kids go to public schools, are involved in extracurricular activities, and go to competitive colleges—13 percent of them go to Centre.
They are very religious Christians. They live in the suburbs, especially of Louisville and Lexington (43 percent of all alumni live in Kentucky). They are predominantly Democrats, but most are closer to the political middle than to the extremes. They do something in the community besides work. They support a local sports team and exercise regularly. They follow the news through multiple sources; almost half the younger alumni get their news primarily from websites. They have hundreds of books in their house. They socialize regularly at a “third place” besides home and work.
Changes Over the Years
Overall the experiences of Centre students and alumni over the classes of 1969 to 1994 are remarkably similar. Most of the big differences among the alumni appear to have more to do with their place in the life-cycle than with their generation.
What follows are a set of differences that show up when we compare years that alumni attended Centre.
Economics Up, English and Biology Down
Three of the most popular majors at Centre over this whole period were English (45 percent), economics (38 percent), and biology (17 percent), but there were large changes in the popularity of each major in different eras. At the end of the 1960s two-thirds of students were English majors, which dropped 25 points by the end
of the 1980s. Economics rose dramatically from about a fifth in the early 1970s to nearly half in the Reagan-Bush 1980s. Biology went from a quarter of students in the early 1970s to half that a decade later.
Politics Down, Service Up
In the late 1960s about half the students were involved in student government and real-world politics. That proportion goes down steadily, to only a quarter of students in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Service organizations of all kinds, on the other hand, rose from single digits in the late 1960s to a large quarter of students by the early 1990s.
Greek Life Is Most Important Extracurricular Activity (Once Sororities Arrived)
Greek life was the most important extracurricular activity for about half the men, while sports was tops with an additional third in all eras. For women, Greek life leapt to first place with 40 percent of the women (after sororities began in 1980). Sports were tops with another quarter of the women. Greek life among women drew support away from the arts and parties about equally.
First Generation Collegians Hold Steady, But Two College-Educated Parents Rise
The proportion of Centre students who are first-generation collegians stays the same over this period, at about 27 percent. There was a significant shift, though, in the proportion with one parent who attended college (drops from 20 percent to 10 percent), compared to those with two college-educated parents (rose from 47 percent to 60 percent). This most likely reflects the higher college-going rate of women from the maternal classes of the 1930s and 1940s compared to the 1960s and 1970s.
Alumni Have More Centre Friends
When asked, “Of your five best friends today, how many did you meet at Centre?” half the Class of 1969 respondents said “none,” dropping to a fifth responding “none” by the early 1990s. At the same time, those answering “two” doubled from 14 percent to 28 percent. Those answering “three,” “four,” and “five” also rose
over the period.
Women’s friendships changed dramatically when sororities arrived. In the 1970s, more than 40 percent of the women reported that none of their closest friends were from Centre. In the early 1980s that percentage drops to the low 30s; by the early 1990s it has dropped to the mid-teens. Men’s friendships did not show such a dramatic change.
The Kinds of Advanced Degrees and Where Centre Alumni Get Them Do Not Change
High proportions get their advanced degrees in Kentucky. This, no doubt, contributes to the high proportion of alumni who live in the state.
Marriage Seems to Rise in Later Cohorts
The early 1970s classes are much less married and more remarried than later years are. The earliest classes to participate in the survey are today 51 percent in their first marriage, 29 percent remarried, and only 7 percent never married. The latest classes, by contrast, are 68 percent in their first marriage, 10 percent remarried, and 13 percent (still) unmarried.
I believe that the younger cohorts are more married not just because they are younger (life-cycle effect), but also because they are culturally a little different (generational effect) than the older classes.
Younger Classes Show Fewer Full-Time Workers, More Homemakers
Overall, 76 percent of the alumni in their prime working years are working full time; 6 percent are homemaking (0 in the oldest classes, 11 percent in the youngest). The youngest alumni report that more of their spouses are full-time workers. However, when we look at the rate of spouses working controlling for sex, we see a significant difference in the youngest classes. Wives working full time drops to under half; for husbands it goes up to 96 percent.
Household Income Does Not Change
This is surprising, since the oldest classes should be at their peak earnings, while the youngest are not. Evidently the recent graduates are doing so well that they have caught up with their elders. The younger classes are more likely to be married, which should increase their relative household income; on the other hand, as we have just seen, they are also more likely to have mom home with the kids.
Reagan Years Graduates Less Likely to Send Their Children to Public School
Children of alumni who went to public high schools as seniors:
74 percent—early 1970s alumni; 71 percent—late 1970s alumni;
57 percent—early 1980s alumni.
City Mice Are the Same; Country Mice Vary
About a third of each class lives in a city. The two-thirds who do not live in cities tend to move further out as they age.
Prime News Sources: TV and Newspapers for the Older, Websites for the Younger
The youngest are twice as likely as the oldest to go to websites first for their news, 34 percent to 14 percent. The oldest are twice as likely as the youngest to use local newspapers (22 percent to 15 percent) and network TV (13 percent to 5 percent).
Protestants Down, Catholics and Non-Denominational Christians Up
The cohorts don’t differ much in how important religion is in their lives (quite a bit for most). And all cohorts are overwhelmingly Christian (75 percent). The Protestant proportion dropped from 60 percent to 47 percent. The Catholic proportion rose from 10 percent to 15 percent, while “Christian, no denomination” rose from 5 percent to 16 percent.
From Lopsidedly Democratic to an Even Party Split
The oldest cohort is 57 percent Democratic to 27 percent Republican; the youngest cohort, 43 percent to 41 percent.
Community Service Differs By Generation
The Baby Boomers are more likely to serve their communities through formal organizations, such as Rotary. Gen Xers are much more likely to work through their children’s activities.
Comparing Advanced Degrees
Almost two-thirds of Centre alumni have advanced degrees. Of that two-thirds, 40 percent hold some kind of master’s degree, including those for educational certification. Ten percent went on to a Ph.D. Of specific professional degrees, the most popular are 20 percent J.D., 13 percent M.B.A., 8 percent M.D./D.D.
Lawyers and Teachers Are the Most Tied to Kentucky
The lawyers (50 percent) and teachers (58 percent) were significantly more likely to live in Kentucky than the average advanced degree holder (38 percent). This is likely because those two credentials are tied to a particular state, unlike the other advanced degrees and professions.
Other Class and Status Schemes
There are multiple ways of dividing the alumni in the Centre survey into class fractions. I asked them this question about the different social status groups: “Based on your understanding of what you do and where you fit in American society, which names best describe your social group? The results, with many overlaps, were:
• upper management—14 percent,
• middle management—13 percent,
• professional—63 percent,
• knowledge industry—18 percent,
• creative class—12 percent,
• small business—13 percent,
• entrepreneur—11 percent,
• artisan—3 percent,
• worker—2 percent,
• homemaker—9 percent, and
• leisure—3 percent.
Beau Weston, Van Winkle Professor of Sociology, joined the Centre faculty in 1990. He holds degrees from Swarthmore College (B.A. with high honors), Yale Divinity School (M.A.R.), and Yale University (M.A., Ph.D.). His survey is part of a larger study of “the lives of the college class” and draws on a comparable survey done by Joseph Soares at Wake Forest on Yale and Wake Forest alumni. His e-mail address is beau.weston@centre.edu
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Centre tradition kissing on the seal at Valentines Day, Stephen and Stacey Schwartz Dexter '04 and '07, and cheering on the team at Homecoming 2008.
