All I know is that I was in Poly Sci at FSU and there is a small core of courses everyone has to take and only 2-3 professors teach them. You may not know everyone’s name but you would know their face as they would have been in at least one class with you. The profs would also know you at least by sight.
I’m going to take a wild guess that there were not that many black poly sci majors at Columbia in 1983. Barry would have been remembered for sure.
U.S. President Barack Obama, due here [in Israel] for his first official visit next week, graduated college in 1983; yet, none of the 25 or so alumni of his class who are now living in Israel remember laying eyes on him...