By The Editors
It’s easy to sit back and complain about the high cost of food, limited amount of parking on campus and 2 a.m. fire drills, while sipping your double mocha chino. It’s a lot harder to walk away from Facebook and instant messaging and take a stand.
Most college students spend four years (some spend five) squeezed in a bubble, unaware or unconcerned about the state of the nation’s economy, environment or international politics. But this student apathy is accepted with the excuse, “we are just college students.”
When this indifference, however, trickles into the bubble of the college community, this excuse is no longer valid. The worst part is students not only choose to stay out of campus affairs, join a club or provoke change, but they also think that their tuition alone entitles them to complain when problems are not fixed to their liking.
This attitude has generated alienation between students, clubs, the Student Government Association and the University. Instead of showing mutual support and respect for one another, it seems as though all ends are at war. The University is cutting benefits for faculty, SGA is cutting funds to some of their largest and oldest organizations, clubs are more worried about their own internal politics than aiding the general student body and students are not even voting in their own student government elections. And no referendum, commuter office or designated freshman residents hall, all of which were created or proposed this year, will fix this lack of caring.
This week The Chronicle reported that in recent years no undergraduate students have stepped up to hold a seat on the University Senate, leaving seats empty and the undergraduate population unrepresented. If there are so many problems with the University that students are not shy about expressing, then why aren’t they are working to improve the community? It’s very easy to criticize when you are uninvolved and are not doing anything about the problems.
As immigrant workers around the United States protested for amnesty on May Day, the University remained quiet. Except for a few Lackmann employees who asked members of HOLA to form a last minute protest, no one seemed to notice what was happening only a few feet away in Hempstead. While all protests or rallies need to first go through public safety, it is shocking HOLA and other clubs did not organize any activities or programs to give a voice to these often voiceless members of society.
Sororities, which are with school spirit down, supposed to display the most campus unity and enthusiasm, dropped in rush numbers this semester.
This year Hofstra was ranked No. 18 for “Least Happy Students” by Princeton Review, and while the University may be able to do some things to improve students’ college experience, we have the power and responsibility to influence University policies, organizations and actions. Change is not impossible
This year we have seen many examples of how a few students can make a difference when they move away from passivity and take action. After years of protests by Students Against Injustice, in the fall the University finally broke away from the exclusive contract with Coca-Cola and expanded its beverage selection to give students a choice. A record number of students attended the home games of the Men’s Basketball Team and came out to the NIT conference to cheer them on. A group of University students spent their spring break in New Orleans helping to rebuild the city after the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. And this month students organized and raised their voices against the genocides in Darfur.
Students need to develop a sense of awareness and concern before graduation or they will experience a very rude awakening. It is not ok to go through life wearing a pair of blinders – ignorant toward everyone and everything that doesn’t directly concern or affect you. Maybe you do not care who was elected SGA president, but if you are so concerned about your food choices and parking space, voting is the best place to start.
Four years go by very quickly and students can either embrace the experience or try to rush through it. You can spend your time here begrudging the University for all its pitfalls, secretly cursing your parents for making you attend the institution, or you can make the best out the college years you will never get back. It’s time to pop the bubble of discontent, laziness and general apathy.
While it’s too late for graduating seniors to change their attitude toward life on campus, it’s time for the rest of the student body, commuter or resident, to become interested and invested in the Hofstra community. At the end of four years there should be a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when receiving your diploma at graduation and your goodbyes should be sincere and with genuine appreciation.
It’s not Harvard, but if students use their time wisely, get involved and give something back, a Hofstra diploma can be worth as much as that of any Ivy League.