| Stepping up
When the only candidate running for House of Student Representatives secretary withdrew Monday, members of the House Elections and Regulations Committee were forced to extend the deadline for applications until Thursday. As a result, three students have since added their names to the ballot. The new candidates are John Duncan, a sophomore premajor, Ben Repstock, a sophomore radio-TV-film major, and Kyle Turner, a sophomore premajor. With the addition of the three candidates, students now has the ability to choose the one who they believe has the most qualifications. Student Government Association President Ben Alexander said this is better for students. "Students now have a choice about who they want as secretary rather than having one appointed by the winners of the election," he said. And we agree. An election without some competition is a bland one. While a lone candidate may have some good ideas, it's a plethora of ideas that provide the life of an election. Competition pushes people to strive for their best, and when it comes to important elected positions such as those in SGA, students need to see the best. Brian Becker, the House Elections and Regulations Committee chairman pro tem, said he thinks publicity was the biggest help in encouraging candidates to apply for the office of secretary. Getting the word out is essential, and the committee did a good job after the first candidate withdrew. Publicity should have been a necessity from the very moment House began searching for candidates. But now it's encouraging to see that the student body will have a new roster of candidates from which to choose along with a variety of ideas, viewpoints and experiences. And to those candidates, thanks for stepping up.
Overcome apathy and cast your ballots Every now and again, I like to get up on my soapbox and dispel deep, meaningful truths so that everyone just can't help but notice the beacon of ubiquitous wisdom, philosophical prowess and intellectual illumination that I really am. Well actually, I'm not really a beacon of ubiquitous wisdom, philosophical prowess and intellectual illumination; I just like to pretend that I am. And I'm not even sure what a beacon is; I probably just read the word somewhere in a magazine. But while I await my nirvana of knowledge, I can still get up on my soap box once in awhile and talk about issues a little more serious than Phish concerts or Jesse Ventura. The month of November always promises three things: elections, homecoming and the inescapable fact that I will always have one professor who wants to give me a test on the day before Thanksgiving. But even in late October, the varied burst of fluorescent colors blinding students as they walk around campus signify that election time is upon us once again. Students on campus running for public offices are busy campaigning, all eagerly vying for a chance to serve and improve TCU. But there's a problem here. In a recent Skiff Purple Poll, a number of students who were asked if they had voted on constitution changes for SGA responded with an absent-minded "What's SGA?" After a dismal showing of about 300 people, the referendum passed. Approximately one-twentieth of our school made a decision that affects the whole campus. Where was everybody else? It looks like I'm going to have to get on my soapbox. We are a university prone to sit and talk about how great it would be to join the parade as we idly watch it go by. Our pre-freshman idealism is quickly replaced by a second-semester cynicism that usually lasts for our college duration. No doubt I have fallen prey to this thinking as well, but it's time for me and everyone else to step outside the boundaries and take active roles on campus. The Student Government Association (for those of you still unsure of what SGA stands for) has implemented new programs and has become more interactive this year than it has been in a long time. Its leaders were competent, hard-working and driven toward making the university, to use the old cliché, "a better place to live." But now new leaders are on the brink of taking over where their predecessors left off, and there should be more than 300 people interested in what they want to bring to this school. Student government elections are approaching and homecoming elections are already here. All it takes to vote and make a difference are a few simple clicks of a mouse button on a computer. The new SGA candidates are visible, viable and all eager to talk about what they can do. We need to hear their stances, examine the issues and make a choice. We need to vote, and we should make decisions based on what qualifies that person for the position, not how good they look or what fraternity or sorority they are in. The Goo Goo Dolls and Tonic are playing in the Daniel-Meyer Coliseum during homecoming week in November. Students complain that the Programming Council (a faction of SGA) never brings big name concerts to TCU, and they're half-right because one of the last good concerts ever held here was when the Grateful Dead came in the '70s. Students counter with the fact that we need to "bring someone like Dave Matthew's to campus." Well OK, but what makes us think he's going to come here if the school can't even sell out a smaller concert? We need to go to activities and try out new things because we probably won't have the chances later on in life. We need to show others that TCU is serious about growing up, and then we will surely attract bigger acts. The opportunities are here and there are a plethora of them. SGA holds forums, asks questions and sends out e-mails trying to get feedback from the campus about how it can serve better. Their efforts are usually met with empty chairs and scorn from people too disinterested to attend meetings. But there's so much more than SGA. There are hundreds of clubs, organizations and activities to get involved in. Turn off the Nintendo 64 and get outside. On a campus where so much is readily available and so many opportunities are open to everyone, it's a shame that all we do is sit around complaining about chicken strips and parking spaces. Instead of talking, let's start doing. Let's challenge ourselves to join an organization, vote or listen to speakers and attend activities we might have never experienced before. Let's move forward with the promising emergence of change and new adventure instead of being left behind in the rut of mediocrity. Let's get out and vote for the leaders that are going to shape our campus. Either way we choose, we will be a beacon for others to follow.
Kevin Dunleavy is a junior advertising/public relations major from Spring, Texas. He can be reached at (kduns80@airmail.net). Service promotes higher learning In 400 hours, a worker earning minimum wage could make more than $2,000. But $2,000 doesn't compare to the value of 400 hours of community service. That's how many hours of service students at the Universidad de las Americas in Puebla, Mexico, must participate in before they graduate. Now community service is being considered as a requirement at TCU as well. By now university administrators should have received a copy of a resolution passed Tuesday by the House of Student Representatives. The resolution recommended that the concept of service learning be presented to the Commission on the Future of TCU's Undergraduate Experience Committee at its meeting in mid-November. Service learning combines community service with structured reflection on the service experience. Students would first participate in a service project and then come together to evaluate and ideally learn something from the experience. Similar programs are already in existence at universities around the country, including Rice, Princeton, Harvard and Georgetown, all of which are ranked in the top-tier by U.S. News and World Report. If the new mission statement is a step toward transforming TCU into a university of that caliber, then service learning would put us even closer to that goal. Nothing better prepares students to "act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in the global community" than service learning. For one, service learning puts us directly into the community. Service learning also teaches that community involvement provides a foundation for becoming a leader in our community, our nation and our world. On a slightly different level, it also gives us a better understanding of the world around us. That way, we can become a part of that community and help it move in a positive direction. It is unclear whether a service-learning program would be a curriculum requirement or a co-curricular activity. In any case, students would be given the opportunity to not only help their community, but also to reflect on and learn from their experience. How does it make you feel when you see these people who are so much less fortunate than you are? What skills do you have that could help those people in the future? What can you teach them that could help them improve their own situation in life? Questions such as these can be hard to ask, and even harder to answer. But a service-learning program would make it a whole lot easier. When I get home from a community service project, I always know that I feel good about myself. I think about how the smiles on the faces of those I helped became a smile on my own. And I feel good that I offered someone something they didn't already have. My satisfaction doesn't go much further than that, but I know it should. I should wonder what I can do so the people I have helped don't need my help anymore. I should always ask myself what more I can do. Service learning is an entirely different classroom experience than anyone at TCU has ever seen. We are told that what we learn in the classroom will prepare us for a job or graduate school, but we need to be told that what we learn outside of the classroom will help prepare us for real life. Whatever our situation at TCU, we will (most likely) graduate and at some time in the future become members of some community, whether it is in Fort Worth or elsewhere. We will need to become socially responsible members of that community and hold its best interests at heart. There is no better time to begin to learn that lesson than right now at TCU.
Jason Crane is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Shreveport, La. He can be reached at (jlcrane@delta.is.tcu.edu). |
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