Lately this campus seems to be experiencing an increasing lack of student participation in the surveys, elections and feedback sessions that shape the experiences of current and future Lawrentians.
The most recent example of this lack of student participation was the LUCC Constitutional Referendum. Open for a week in survey format on Voyager, only 244 students answered the first question and still fewer – 225 – answered the second question. This year’s LUCC presidential election, which was also done online for students’ convenience, also had a low turnout. Only 263 students voted in an election for what is probably the most important student officer position on campus.
At the end of March, a feedback event was held at the wall mock-up for the new campus center. It was estimated that only about 30 students were present at the beginning of this event. While it is true that most of us are not going to be around to see the new campus center, we still have the opportunity to help design something that future generations of Lawrentians will be using for a very long time.
The faculty is so aware of our apathy that when they switched to doing course evaluations online students got reminder emails from the Registrar’s Office, Provost and Dean of the Faculty Dave Burrows, Dean of Students Nancy Truesdell, ITS and the president herself.
So why are we so apathetic? Are we that busy with homework, papers, projects and practicing that we can’t make time for our beloved campus? Or do we really just not care? Perhaps it’s because students feel less of a sense of community or loyalty to campus than they used to. Whatever the cause of it may be, we should make an effort to change it. We spend just four short years here; we may as well take advantage of every opportunity given us to make changes and improvements, if not for ourselves, for future generations of students.
Staff Editorial
