With Dillo Day coming up this weekend, many Northwestern students are giddy. For one day, “Northwestern is like a state school!” many will shriek.
While the various goings on of that day excite many, the anticipation for that date in late May covers up a lot of the problems that makes this institution a place so full of apathy. And the time has come to face these problems and stop pushing them under the rug .
Administrators dismiss the indifference that exists towards NU as “kids being kids.” But that’s just wrong. People are unhappy. Crotchety or not, they must not be dismissed.
Instead of developing real solutions, the university decides to build another science building. Instead of developing a kind of long-term change that can leave the Class of 2026 feeling happy, we hold more barbecues. Instead of attacking a problem when it hits us in the face, we create a task force.
That is Northwestern University for you. For four years, NU has disappointed me with its lack of creativity and overwhelming bureaucracy.
Nothing saddened me more than the backlash that followed Prajwal Ciryam’s Jan. 20 column “Has anyone seen our president?” In it, Ciryam asked for University President Henry Bienen to spend more time interacting with the student body and less time focusing on fundraising. Rather than taking Ciryam’s suggestions under advisement, Bienen would go to classrooms, reading aloud a harsh e-mail he already sent Ciryam, stating that the columnist owed him “and this institution” an apology.
I can’t blame Bienen for being hurt. But a student actually wanted increased interaction with his university president and this is what he gets?
But students are to blame, as well. We are good at listing problems but bad at creating any solutions. Here are a few that should stir the pot:
The bureaucracy has to shrink. Whenever problems strike, the first instinct is to spend two weeks devising a plan. Instead, there have to be some long-term changes that can help make students happy for years to come.
It’s a matter of changing the mindset. Too often, NU takes an adversarial approach to students’ wants. Look no further than Vice President of University Relations Alan Cubbage’s statement that university programming on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was not appreciated because of “people bitching.” The university’s spokesperson, likely with high-quality training in public relations, said this.
The admissions rate must also drop. NU has long been a popular second choice. Harvard has an 11 percent acceptance rate. If NU achieves even a 20 percent rate, it would be deemed elite and become people’s first choice because it only takes the cream of the crop. Students wouldn’t come here feeling unhappy, like they have failed before they start.
But with that must come something to latch on to: an NU identity. It won’t come through generic barbecues or movies on the Lakefill. So few people know the university’s history. So few people know what made NU what it is today.
People think of NU as a good school with a bad football team. What you need is to make students aware of the history of NU. Famous alumni, weird bits of history – anything. South Campus coffee shops won’t make students love NU. What you have to do is make students grateful to be here. It seems here that students make a four-year pact, leave and forget all about their time in Evanston. There has to be something more than just The Rock and a single day of music and fun to make NU unique.
Knowing what I know now, I would have thought harder about coming to NU. And I’m sure I’m not alone.
I hope we stop being ignored.
Assistant Sports editor and former Forum editor Troy Appel is a Weinberg senior. He can be reached at [email protected].
