Building a new student center is as ridiculous as buying a Moleskine. And I guess that’s a bit of a statement, so let’s take it point by point.

You can tell me all day how useful the Moleskine is, how convenient and classy. And I tell you, yes, you may need some form of bounded paper to take notes on, or to jot down your most intimate feelings. I emphasize may, because you could probably get by stapling together some loose-leaf paper and save ten dollars!

But I’m not so concerned about saving money. What concerns me is how we’re spending our money and how those representing us are asking for money to be spent. Do we not see the irony in “standing” with Pakistan by throwing a dollar into a jar that goes who-knows-where as we make our way to Barnes and Noble to purchase a $15 notebook?

Should it not give us pause that students on this campus are simultaneously campaigning for a living wage for workers at Northwestern and for a new student center that will cost millions of dollars? Living wage means giving just enough so people can subsist, a new student center means we can send a package without “trekking into Evanston” as the director of the New Student Center Initiative so aptly put it in his column in this paper on Monday.

Maybe the way you spend your money is your business, you buy what you like and who am I to question? Maybe it’s like ASG President Claire Lew was quoted as saying, that “Norris is pretty embarrassing.” Well, no, I will question, and what embarrasses me is when my peers do not recognize their privilege and flout the sense of responsibility that should come with it. Lew said that building a new student center is “the number one issue we face right now.” Who is the “we” in that sentence? If I’m meant to be included in it, leave me out.

Is Norris not packed on a daily basis with people studying, chatting, eating, and doing whatever it is that students at Northwestern do, without caring for a second about the possibility that if the building were renovated it could have its own post office or bowling alley? It’s the Moleskine-effect: you put a shiny product on the shelf and people will buy it.

But, if we really care about unity, which is one of the stated aims of this new student center initiative, then we have to seriously consider if this is what should be done with the University’s money. And we should let those who claim to represent us know what we believe. Yes, other top schools have fancier student centers. But, do we not have the courage to say we can be better than those schools by not caring about our student center?

What would happen if we asked the administration to take a small percentage of the $45 million proposed for the construction of this new student center and put it toward a living wage or toward helping the millions of homeless people in Pakistan? As unrealistic as it seems, maybe that’s something really worth standing and fighting for. If we could actually convince the administration to build a new student center, we should be able to convince them to put that money toward a cause that matters.

Is there not something higher that we can actually stand for instead of petty preferences and overblown student government initiatives? It doesn’t even have to be Pakistan or the living wage, it doesn’t have to be something we do with our money, it could be precisely what we don’t do with our money. Let’s use our time, energy, and care to invest in a cause greater than ourselves, and not just throw a dollar or millions in an empty jar.

Jamie Weissmann is a Weinberg senior. He can be reached at [email protected].