At the Back to School BBQ this year, The Agora asked students to submit story ideas, and ideas poured in.
One particular suggestion was to write a story about why there aren’t many beautiful people on campus.
As silly as this sounds, because true beauty lies on the inside of each of us, I was starting to wonder if this anonymous suggestion was hitting the nail on the head for what is wrong with our campus.
In the last issue of The Agora, I created a seek-n-find stumper for students to find on campus, a bit of campus history and something to look forward to for students to read and participate in.
Out of my own pocket, I offered a drawing for all correct entries for a $10 Amazon gift certificate.
I received absolutely no responses. I was deeply disappointed. I know that I personally told many students about the contest, and how they should enter the drawing. Crickets!
That “failure to respond” had me wondering. After all, the contest was not overly difficult to participate in.
Then, while sitting in my German class, I overheard one of the more boisterous classmates say, “Hey, have you read the latest rag?”
When the student in front of her said, “What rag?” she replied with, “The Agora, it’s a joke.”
I said absolutely nothing to this student, but felt my heart break in the process. I know how hard many of us work on getting the student newspaper out on time, every time. I am sad that many students do not read our school newspaper.
It’s not a rag; at least the Michigan Press Association feels we have a quality newspaper, since we took third place in the entire state of Michigan for community college newspapers.
What makes a school great is the dynamics of a student body; when the student body cares about their school and works to make it better.
Outside of Student Government and other clubs on campus, we do not have that dynamic with the general student body. It’s very sad.
Joke or not, we work very hard on The Agora. We all receive a grade at the end of each semester for a class.
I guess I am finding myself with the anonymous suggestion asking where have all the beautiful people gone, and why have they been replaced with students who could care less?
