The editorial in last week's Arrow, "Small crowd more disappointing than Angelou's no-show", had a theme pretty common among the Arrow's editorials, and one that I'm frankly sick of hearing.
The editorial criticized students (actually, the whole community) for not supporting the university enough. Other times they've put it more succinctly: we're too apathetic, they say. My question is: who cares?
Sometimes it almost seems like Arrow's editorials spend less time expressing the views of the students than they do attacking them. I don't know how many I've seen that were whining about our apathy and lack of support.
Come on. Apathy is the dominant mood of our entire society right now. It's a lot easier to not care about things that don't dramatically affect us. And honestly, not everyone has noticed big changes since President Nitzschke got here.
So we're apathetic. So we don't have "school spirit." This isn't a Southeast-only epidemic; it's a nationwide trend. Apathy is in. Live with it.
And while we're talking about lack of school spirit, I should remind you that this isn't exactly the most prestigious university around. A lot of people don't even like this school.
What if we think Southeast is an inferior institution, compared to other universities, and only came here because it was easier or cheaper than going to a better school? I only came here because I have a free ride. I'd never even heard of this place before they started offering me money.
The group of students who feel this way is not small. How can they be made more spirited? Constantly bitching at them won't work. So only 3,000 people attended the Angelou-less inauguration ceremony. I'm surprised even that many showed up.
Let's face it: the inauguration was just a ceremony, a formality. President Nitzschke has been in office all year. Why have the big party seven months in?
Maybe President Nitzschke is a better president than the last one. I certainly haven't heard any rumors of him being a drunken sot like I did about the last president. But why should that make me attend a gala event in his honor? I've never met the guy. I didn't vote for him; I wasn't even given the chance.
To tell the truth, I was planning on going to the inauguration, and I don't even like Maya Angelou. I was going because I would have gotten extra credit in American Lit II (and also because a girl I was interested in at the time told me I could go with her.)
When I found out that morning that Maya wouldn't speak, there just wasn't a point in going any more. Sure, I still could have gotten the extra credit, but there was simply no appeal in going to hear random people say how great Dale Nitzschke and Southeast Missouri State are.
Of course people only went to the inauguration to see the celebrity. If we want to see President Nitzschke, we can just go wait in the hall outside his office until he leaves for lunch.
Really, if the whole "inauguration week" was intended to celebrate President Nitzschke (or, as he said, to honor the students,) then why did we invite so many big-name celebrities who never even went here or knew the guy? Wasn't it just a gimmick to get people to come?
No, that can't be it. It must have been something else.