Thoughts on Lawrence

Recently I read the LUCC news letter. Each new officer explained their position and gave a few words of advice. The new VP explained the budget process: where the funding comes from, how's it's used, etc... He then encouraged students to become more involved on-campus. One of his main lines of reasoning was that students pay an activity fee, so they should join clubs and be involved; doing something other than that is apathetic. I'm all about clubs, and extracurricular activities have always been a large part of my Lawrence experience; however, I'm tired of people using this broken logic to tell people that they should join clubs. It is a required fee; as a student you do not have a choice to pay the fee or not - if you are on-campus, you pay it. When you pay for something you are not required to use it.

The second part also bothers me. If someone doesn't join a club it's not necessarily because of apathy - they may not be interested in any of the clubs; I'm sure there are plenty of students who come away from the activities fair in the fall with nothing more than a root beer float. Further, their interests may not warrant a club - maybe just a game of Blokus between friends - so claiming then that they should start their own club is also unfair and a poor generalization. There is something to be said to the student who is completely shut off, ignores the white boards in every dorm, the numerous posters around campus, copious amount of facebook invitations, or online Lawrence Calendar. Those students are being apathetic, because they do not think about what's happening around campus; however, simply not going to events or joining clubs is not apathetic - you may have an interest in the events. Sorry but this drives me nuts. There are plenty of clubs that I would never think twice about joining - Meele or Swing Dancing.

With all of this said it is difficult to bring people to events on this campus. Even when you put on a good event they don't turn out. I will never say that people should go, or they're sorry to miss it; rather I would encourage people to approach clubs and events in a different way around campus. If you see a flyer for a movie playing in Wriston look up what it's about before you decide not to go, same goes for a concert - listen to the band before deciding if you're going. Also many times it's a shared blame for poor turn out at events. People are so quick to hold the others who didn't come accountable; however, maybe the club has lost credibility in the past by putting on boring events or didn't advertise well this time.