That Other Thing.

Life in my college has taken me on many twists and turns, from getting my bike wheels stolen, to becoming involved in redefining the schools emphasis in art and design, or to accidentally creating a student group. Lately the campus has turned once again.

A decision to close certain historically underprivileged offices has in turn threatened the confidence and optimism of the school, as well as threaten the yearlong planning efforts to steer the college in new directions.

These issues have risen from a profound lack of communication between the student constituents, the faculty voters, and the administrators that seek to bind the school together through prosperity.

Maybe this has occurred because of conflicting definitions of prosperity, or the degree to which the campus should be "together" to ensure prosperity. Or even in the case of one faculty member, the unplanned expansion of enrollment that has lead to the resource guarding of various departments.

Whatever the underlying issues, as a student, I am compelled to wonder how the juggling act of running the school has ended in a pile of mess on the floor. This is my perception as of right now.

My fractured logic has lead to this:
The communication of the vision for the schools future has not reached the students, the faculty or the steering committees in a way that instills confidence in the vision, or in the future.

There is a snotty technique that people use to avoid this kind of conflict: they insist that everything is not only o.k. but on the road to unimagined prosperity. This method is not lying, but is instead an extremely optimistic approach to a problem whose scale might elude conventional logic. I see this mode of communication in how governments communicate to their people. It does not work when prosperity does not come, and citizens begin to ask the tough and thorough questions that mandate a changing of the guard, and make giving second chances a criminal act.

Unfortunately, my college has provoked a response in its actions that begins to ask those tough questions in a way that reflects poorly on everyone.

If the admins cannot reconcile the disparate personalities and begin to communicate confidence, competence, and community, then they will have squandered their currency in those things.

Nothing is as valuable as optimism, and reputation.

We must maintain these things on all levels to become, in the words of bill and ted, "excellent"

This is my perception right now.