I recently read an editorial in your paper that I found particularly disturbing and disheartening, titled: “No One Cares About Apathy on Campus.” Since I have arrived here on campus, nearly four years ago, I have heard different people speak about apathy. I hear this from students, faculty and staff, administrators, local, state and national officials, members of the Regents office and numerous other individuals on and off campus.
My response to each of these individuals is the same, “I don’t believe in apathy on our university campuses.”
The word “apathy” comes with an implication; the implication that the subject, the purveyor of apathy, does not care. I have never met a student, in fact I would venture to say that I have never met anyone, who just did not care.
I abhor the use of this term because it is thrown around in place of more critical and analytical thought. It is the scapegoat of people more concerned with “why” and less concerned with “how,” why people do not seem to listen and do not seem to care and how we can engage them in ways that are meaningful and constructive.
I do not believe that people do not care. I have never met one person who does not care about the world around them and the effect they have on it. So the question is then: Why do people seem not to care?
I would recommend that anyone interested in seriously considering this question replace the word “apathy” with the word “disillusionment.” Disillusion is defined as: “disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be.” Imagine where we come from, and who we are.
Most of us are products of the public school system, a system that is designed to break the spirits of its students and to ensure that they do not question, do not exceed the capacity of the teachers or the facilities and, in fact, do not dream too high or too big. The traditional student comes from this environment, where they are not supposed to think and they are not supposed to care. What does college do? Without any prompting and very little introduction we demand that they do the exact opposite.
Every staffer, every professor and every organization wants everyone to care right now. This requirement is impossible. No one goes from 15 years of forced mediocrity to excellence and engagement in a month.
Couple this with a completely incongruent attitude towards the new student’s social standing (not quite adults yet no longer children) and you have a perfect recipe for people to give in and give up. Why try? Why care? Why give a damn when the world around them has already shown that it does not reciprocate? Why care when students have already been relegated to second-class citizenship?
So then what we should really be asking ourselves is: Who is ultimately responsible for the attitude on campus?
Is it the student who has all but given up, who is committed to getting a degree but wants nothing more to do with the university, the state or really anything beyond that which has a direct affect on his or her own world?
Is it the professor’s fault: overworked, underpaid, split between those students who truly want to learn and improve themselves and those students who are unprepared, unmotivated and truly unimaginative?
Or is it the administrator and staffers’ job: understaffed, under-budgeted, underappreciated and attempting desperately, valiantly, to engage a populace that has been all but ruined before they even arrive?
Or is it our responsibility, the students who are engaged, who care and who love the opportunities and the resources that they have been afforded both in their education and in their personal lives, but work multiple jobs, are beholden to everyone or are constantly accruing debt and are always at the disadvantage of time and means?
I have news that I expect will not make me very popular: it is everyone’s responsibility. Students, engage your fellow students! Make them understand that their success rides on the accomplishments they make now, that learning is not a temporary state of being but an ongoing, lifelong journey.
Introduce them to this campus and to the abundant resources it has to propel them onward and upward. Share the burden and the reward of leadership and civic engagement. Demand that they contribute; as people who enjoy the spoils they must also give their parts. Things will fail, you will be tested and, at times as we all must, you will come up short, but you can leave this place much better than you found it if you make the most of what you have.
Administrators and staffers, you are here for the student, that is why this university exists. Do not forget it. There are 4,800 students who go to school here and around 500 make it their home. Most of them waste their time and energy doing nothing. You sit on the biggest free labor pool in the entire southeastern part of this state!
However, that being said, they need to be engaged, and they need to be inspired. They do not need to be ordered around, but treated like adults, on equal footing and given a heavy say in what is done, where and for whom. This is how you will engage these men and women, by assuming that they can contribute and giving them that opportunity.
Professors: expect only the best. Too often I see professors accepting excuses and equivocations. I do it too. We need to stop. To perpetuate the attitude that the student is here only for the degree will continue the further degradation of our system of higher education. Students are here for degrees, but they are also here to be educated, contributing members of our society. There is so much more that they need to know than what their major can offer them.
Reading and writing are not niceties to be used only in the classroom but to contribute to a broader understanding of the world around us. Skills such as these and their appropriate application and use can mean the difference between a job and a career.
Finally, to the student newspaper, if there is an attitude in which disillusion festers, it is one of ignorance and darkness. It is not that I do not appreciate reviews of movies, of albums and stunning social commentary on current television shows. It is not that I am unappreciative of the articles run about myself and the Student Government because I feel that there is a genuine necessity for the student body to be informed about our actions.
What I am most disturbed by is the serious lack of stories related to the campus community, its concerns, challenges and opportunities. There are serious problems on our campus, but nothing that cannot be resolved. The best and fastest way to resolve issues is to bring them to the forefront of public opinion.
Making the students aware of what is happening on this campus is both your mission and one of the fundamental necessities for effective civic engagement. Real investigative reporting will not only bring people a greater understanding of their campus, but will give resources and input for those students with the ability to effect change and all the more support they need to do so.
Students need to be engaged. Everyone on this campus needs to take the responsibility of accomplishing this goal, students, faculty, staff, administration, and, especially, the student’s bastion of free, independent speech and information: the newspaper.
It is only as a cohesive community that we can hope to accomplish anything and it is only by engaging our biggest constituency, our students, that we can hope to have the power necessary to make the impact we hope to see.
– Matthew Heggy
SGA President