By Ryan Broderick

Everyone knows the debate was kind of a big deal. It’s been this unbelievable, lofty, event that’s loomed over campus for almost a year. Now that it was here, though, I have to say, that I was seriously and totally blown away with how everything actually turned out. Today, for the first time in my admittedly short amount of time on campus, I felt proud to go to Hofstra University.

Everywhere I went, there was this buzz in the air. In every section of campus there was an excitement and energy that honestly felt like Mardi Gras for politics. Everywhere you walked there were signs and demonstrations representing what, for the most part, students of the University actually believed in. For four hours today, democracy was wonderfully abundant.

In the age that our generation is inheriting, there are a lot of issues that we’ve had thrown on our backs. The economy, the environment, the looming threat of terrorism and every issue this country has dealt with for the last decade seems to have been piled on to us. Most 20-somethings are leaving their schools looking at an almost apocalyptic level of problems waiting for them.

It’s clear that “Debate ’08” was almost assuredly focused on trying to get college students to finally vote and care about their environment. But it is certain that they succeeded in ways that were never imagined. And I know I may seem completely idealistic and entirely out of touch with reality, but no matter how truly cynical I am, today affected my view of the University.

Panic attacks are on the rise for our generation, and for 18-to-20-year-olds there’s this looming anxiety about what will happen starting next year. I’ve personally heard more than a few students my age describing a horrifying feeling of “What do I do with this Godd**** mess that we’ve gotten ourselves into?” Today on our campus, though, there was this overwhelming sense that no matter what we had to face, we could face it.

It makes sense, too. We are lucky enough to be the first generation to, one, be able to change the world, and, two, have a genuine and important reason to change it. We have the wisdom, while many times it manifests itself as cynicism, of every era that came before us and it shouldn’t be crazy to think that we can fix what this world has become. We’re more pragmatic than our parents were at our age and we’re more globally aware than our grandparents were. The result is a group of people standing on the edge of a world that actually needs us.

The idea that we’re actually needed and can actually make a difference might very well be the reason we’re so reluctant to do something. There’s really no model for what we are facing. My only hope though, for this campus, is that after the CNN trucks and the “Good Morning America” vans pull away down Fulton Ave., we remember how important we felt. I hope that once the feeling of “actually mattering” floats away, the “rich kid Long Island-itis” doesn’t set back in and we start getting lazy again.

I just hope we remember that for one day, we were the center of the country and that we possibly inspired other schools. Of course the typical cynical college student in me says that nothing will change here. By next Monday we’ll almost assuredly revert back to a school that has definitely earned “14th from the bottom: most unhappy student body in the country” in The Princeton Review.

I just wish that someone here will remember the magic and keep it going. Who knows, maybe this place will surprise me again.

Ryan Broderick is a sophomore print journalism student. You may e-mail him at [email protected]..