Greyhound students lack school spirit
A recent survey on the MyUIndy website polled the student body on the recent inauguration of President Robert Manuel. The majority responded by saying that they did not plan to attend any of the inaugural events on or off campus.
At first, I saw nothing strange about this as I answered the same way. I planned for that Thursday to be a day of sleeping until noon, eating lunch and then going back to bed until midnight.
My plans were changed at the last minute when I was awakened at the ungodly hour of 11 a.m. by my roommate. Since I couldn’t fall asleep again, I decided to accompany him to the inauguration.
As a sucker for pomp, circumstance and mortarboards, I was served a slice of humble pie when I realized I almost slept through this once-in-a-lifetime event.
But while I woke up in time, not many did. The auditorium was packed, but I saw very few people I recognized. Why did so few students go? More importantly, why does it seem that so few UIndy students care about events on campus?
Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics and Associate Professor of Kinesiology Sue Willey said that there are many reasons for the lack of student involvement.
“We get great crowds at Pink Night and Pack the House, but that shows we have to have something special to bring people in,” Willey said.
Willey believes some of the reasons students fail to attend events are due to the school culture.
“A large percent of the students are multitaskers. They take their classes, and most of them work jobs so they can pay for school. There’s also a bigger draw to downtown,” Willey said. “But we need to work on what President Manuel said in his inaugural address and make the school ‘an anchor, not an island.’”
Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Kory Vitangelli believes that she has a solution to the problem concerning lack of interest for events on campus.
“Faculty and staff can help promote school spirit by listening to students about what they would like to see taking place on campus and also by being present at activities and programs that are taking place on campus,” Vitangelli said.
With the amount of money each of us is paying to go here, why not get the most out of it?
We are all busy. We are the mutlitasking generation. With all our activities, majors, double-majors, focuses, minors, internships, jobs and social lives, life can get tiring. We seem never to have time for things like plays, performances and games when we’re recovering from all of our activities.
But we need to make the time. These events on campus help us to become more well-rounded. I’m not a sports person, but going to a football game gives me something to talk about. You may not be a theatre person, but getting out there to support our school’s actors is important. You can get Lecture/Performance credit for a lot of these things too.
In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it [life].”
Part of the university’s goal is to make students more dynamic. When we skip the events on campus, we waste our money and ultimately, our time. We are only at this school for a short time. Let’s not waste it.
