Speak up for more than just elections

Dear editor:

The absent voices and actions you alluded to in Monday’s paper go far beyond the USS elections.

Groups all over campus are fighting a serious struggle getting people to come to special events and general meetings. PRIDE!Kent and BUS (traditionally some of the larger, more active groups on campus) can hardly manage to get the basic number of student leaders needed to allow them to function at their most basic levels. It’s extraordinarily frustrating to know what groups, such as PRIDE!, BUS, ACPB and others are capable of, yet see them go unused, unappreciated and unattended. I make the following appeals:

To the Stater – You are clearly aware of the lack of student involvement on campus. Perhaps you could remedy that by letting students know everything that is happening on their campus. Instead of filling up the paper with advertisements for your own organization and others (that nobody reads anyway), why not publish a comprehensive list of every student organization meeting, event, performance, lecture, workshop, and service opportunity on campus?

To administrators and leaders – This place is a ghost-town on weekends because there is nothing to do and things close earlier. Please take some initiative and institute some relevant policies (later Student Center hours for example) and plan some weekend events.

To the students – Apathy among the student body is the number one reason for this unfortunate position we are in. If you don’t go to student organization meetings or events because you think they’re lame, get off your ass and do something about it. If you don’t try to make it better, you don’t have the right to complain. Come to meetings, concerts, performances, speakers. If you do, if you let them know they can count on you, I promise your organizations and the university as a whole will recognize it and reward you with interesting, gratifying and enriching opportunities.

It’s tragic that an effective persuasion for our travel abroad programs is “Get Out of Kent Now!” I’m not totally enamored with this university – it has plenty of flaws – but it is what the students make it. What are you making it?

Kevin Casimer

President of PRIDE!Kent

New offices waste of space, money

Dear editor,

As you read this, hundreds of thousands of periodicals from the second floor of the library are being boxed and shipped to the Regional Depository in Rootstown for storage. I would understand this if there was a loss of space because of more recent periodicals. What I don’t understand, however, is why these materials that students use daily for research are being moved so the Executive Offices can be expanded.

To anyone who has never been inside the executive offices (which is home to President Lefton’s office among other things), imagine a world far beyond the other offices on campus. Think luxurious carpets, expensive chairs, mechanical blinds that cost $2,000 a piece … I think you get my point. I have yet to see an office or room in that area that does not make any other office on campus look like a cardboard box, and yet here they are, remodeling – again.

What’s the deal? The university is constantly complaining about not having enough money for things that matter. Maybe we’d have more money for the students if we didn’t spend thousands of dollars to make over the nicest offices on campus. Maybe Lefton should spend a day in the 6×6 closets that almost every professor in Satterfield Hall is using. Maybe then he would appreciate what he has. If he still thinks he and his buddies need more? Then he should pay out of his own pocket because we certainly pay him enough.

Becky Allred

senior English major