| Escaping tragedy
At 4:30 a.m., when most are sound asleep in their residence hall rooms, no one expects the worst. But the worst happened at Seton Hall University in New Jersey Wednesday morning after a fire broke out in a residence hall and killed three students. Students were frantic in the early morning as they fled to safety, sending many terrified students in pajamas into the cold to watch the residence hall burn. Some students even had to jump out of windows to escape the blaze. Keara Sauber, 18, told the Associated Press she saw one student shivering in a T-shirt and boxers, his skin completely blackened. Two of the three male students killed were found in the lounge, and the other was found in a bedroom nearby. Investigators are still searching for a cause of the fire. A tragedy like this should make us aware of our actions and make us realize that anything we do could affect our own lives or the lives of others. Lighting candles in dorm rooms or using small electrical appliances is prohibited by university policies. Each dorm is also required to have one fire drill per semester. It is our responsibility as dorm residents to comply with these rules. Participation in fire drills is important, even though they may occur in the middle of a nap. Some residents of that Seton Hall residence hall ignored the alarm on Wednesday because of numerous false alarms that have sounded since the beginning of last semester. Shivering in the cold in your PJs is better than taking the risk of burning inside a fiery trap. Roger Fisher, director of Residential Services, said the greatest threat when it comes to fire safety, are students who break the rules. So follow the rules and let's hope the worst never happens here.
Leadership isn't a résumé-builder Last semester I participated in the Chancellor's Leadership Program, which I'm sorry to say was quite a failure. I hope our Chancellor, whom I have an affinity for, will remove his name from it. My beef with the program, though, is not a result of poor leadership or weak participants in the program; in fact I even got a few dates out of it. No, it wasn't the ingredients of the program that made it weak, but rather how they were mixed. Essentially, TCU's entire leadership philosophy, while on surface finds praise, for many is fatally flawed. When we speak of leadership at TCU, we seem to run in circles around one theme, this being participation. Leadership, however is the very opposite of participation and is sometimes the absence of participation. We make it so easy for everyone to carve out a niche through our "It's about you" attitude, that very few real leaders ever have the opportunity to emerge. One very large part of being a leader is being a rebel, a non-conformist, and while I won't relegate you to a speech on non-conformity, I will say that leaders are people who think ahead of their time and implement change that may not be understood for years to come. Leaders are those who sit in soup kitchens with college degrees or, barely able to eat, live in third-world countries because it's human to help others with little financial reward. Leadership is not about titles or recognition, or a program which carries the Chancellor's title. It's about seeing what's right, the possibility of others and the standing for ideas that society can embrace not because they're easy but because they are right and good. Since we do attend a Christian school, I will use a well known figure in history to illustrate my example. Before his execution, Jesus was called "King of the Jews" by his executors. Many wanted him to remove himself from the cross and claim the kingdom of the earth with the power he supposedly had. Many people wanted Jesus to be a great general, destroying the wicked and raising toast with the good, but all of these titles represented vanity rather than leadership. Jesus wasn't a leader according to TCU standards. He walked with the poor, took no worldly recognition for his achievements and died for what he believed in. He didn't want the titles we relish or the popularity from certain clubs. He wanted people to see the big picture of our connected humanness, which all leaders understand. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi and Rosa Parks all understood. Simply put, a large majority of TCU's leadership program is based on vanity. Real leaders aren't being created because other students will always be coming into those same positions with the same idea that being a leader here is just another thing to tag to a résumé. While I am positive that some real leaders do attend this school, they might not all participate in student government, or leadership programs, or orientations or even write Skiff columns. These people are found in the most unlikely places, working hard for something that may not pay off immediately. Our programs should focus on aspects of great leaders and their actions in the past, not study tips and get-to-know-you games. Real leaders do these things naturally. What students need is inspiration and hope that the future they fight for is worth it and that original ideas can be stronger than bureaucratic red tape. Leadership is being part visionary and part martyr, not just another spoke in the wheel.
Matthew Colglazier is a freshman news-editorial journalism major from Fort Worth. He can be reached at (mscolglazier@delta.is.tcu.edu). Gay couples deserve recognized marriages Millions of people are being denied one of the most basic and fundamental rights that Americans possess: the right to live with a partner of their choosing and receive the benefits of a committed union. The gay community and their allies continue to fight against the discrimination that prevents legal recognition of gay partnerships. Slowly, too slowly, progress is being made. The Vermont Supreme Court recently ruled that gays and lesbians cannot be denied the benefits of the state's civil marriage statuses. But they also upheld previous statutes that prevent gay couples from obtaining a marriage license. Alternative policies must be formulated to recognize gay domestic partnerships and grant them equal rights under law. And it's about time. For years, gay partnerships have suffered from the lack of legal recognition. These unions are very real to those in them, but they are generally ignored by government, businesses and, often, the families of the gay partners. Gay partners are not considered next-of-kin and are not allowed to make crucial decisions for their partner in emergency situations. Gay unions are also prevented from receiving most of the benefits legally married couples enjoy such as state tax breaks, inheritance benefits and community property rights. Some couples have gone so far as to form limited liability partnerships to have some sort of legal protection and rights. Unfortunately, the issue of nomenclature further complicates this vast debate. For some people, the words "gay" and "marriage" cannot be associated with each other due to moral and ethical reasons. For that reason, the more acceptable term "domestic partnership" is an alternative. However, the issue is civil rights, not morality. We're not talking about marriage in the biblical sense. It is unfortunate that gay marriage ceremonies are not recognized by many religions, but time and education will eventually change this. What we're talking about is civil marriage, the staid and formal process that does nothing more than recognize a committed couple and grant them certain rights. Nothing religious or spiritual is implied. A domestic partnership could be established by signing a declaration and filing it with the city clerk or by having the document notarized and giving a copy to the person who witnessed the signing. The process seems simple, straight forward and almost mundane. For now, we watch and wait. We wait to see what kind of solution Vermont comes up with. We wait to see what the outcome will be in the referendum on marriage that California will hold on March 7. But the wait will not be long. The gay community and their supporters will not stand idly by and continue to tolerate this violation of civil rights. Undoubtedly, they shall overcome someday.
Sarah Mullen Martinez is a senior advertising/public relations major from Fort Worth. She can be reached at (sarah92978@aol.com). Change interferes with plans of the 'comfortable' in
land of status Change Sucks! A University of Michigan School of Business professor made this remark during a strategic, long range planning meeting at his university. It reflected the deep frustration when the status quo is under attack and organizations look to the future. TCU is going through a similar planning process right now called The Commission on the Future of TCU. This group of 450 bright people met for the first time on Nov. 17, 1999, and then broke into 17 task forces to manage specific areas of the university. After the first meeting, it seems clear where the Commission is headed. They are headed to the land of status quo. Change sucks, and in 40 years, TCU is going to look at lot like it looks today. The 1999 freshman class has 84 percent whites, 5 percent Hispanics, 4 percent African-Americans and 2 percent Asians. This is not going to change. Nothing in our diversity efforts will attract more minority students to attend school here. Why? Because if there is an increase in minorities, there will be 'white flight' of the students with the deep pockets who pay tuition. They will go to SMU or some state university. That's a shame because the one great thing about education is socialization with people of different backgrounds and cultures. Brite Divinity School has men and women from diverse backgrounds, colors, languages and beliefs. The second reason TCU is staying in the land of status quo is the nifty way the Commission set up the task forces. While the 1999 freshman class has 60 percent women, the task forces have up to 85 percent men. The College of Science and Engineering has no women on their task force, and the M.J. Neeley School of Business task force has 20 percent women members. The Commission is comfortable in the land of status quo because turf-protectors from the staff, faculty and members of the Board of Trustees have a heavy hand on every task force. The Faculty Senate and the Board of Trustees will have final say on programs implemented by the university; why do they need input into the plan? Other Trustees and top university administrators are strategically placed on important task forces. There are surprisingly few minorities on task forces. Their voices are muted in the land of status quo. Our Board of Trustees does not have a black face or a Hispanic face on it. Minority Trustees might encourage TCU to mirror the Fort Worth community with 57 percent white students, 19 percent Hispanics and 21 percent blacks. That is not who we are. We are an affluent, white university with no reason to change. Change sucks and is very painful. The minutes of the task force meetings are full of such phrases as "new building," "expand programs" and "look at faculty salaries." Turf was being protected, and no one was ready to have a program taken away. In the land of status quo, change sucks. It would be courageous for these task forces to honestly evaluate their own programs. A task force in academics might conclude, for example, that funding the Honors program should be secondary to putting money in the business school. Or perhaps a task force might decide that the sociology and criminal justice courses can be better taught in a community college so they recommend that the university shut down this program. These are theoretical examples, of course, but the task forces need to be considering those hard decisions. In the land of status quo, this does not often happen. The Commission is not going to change anything significant. In the land of status quo, things are peaceful and calm. TCU students do not have to associate with people who are "not our kind." TCU students are safe, adequately schooled and have no reason to want change. For heaven sakes, the parents of students do not want to send their boys and girls to a school where other students talk, look and act differently. We are who we are, and we are not about to change things. In the land of status quo, it is always works like that.
David Becker is a graduate student in Brite Divinity School from Pueblo, Colo. He can be reached at (evadgorf@aol.com). |
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