Saturday night the Engineering Student Council (ESC) held its annual formal at Hotel Chester. While the dance was a success, the ESC had to overcome a significant obstacle to host it-the original reservations with the Hunter Henry Alumni Center were apparently canceled by the Center, forcing the council to find a new location for the dance, delaying the event by a day.
The Student Activities form required to reserve the Center had been submitted before January, and the Center gave no notice of cancellation until last Thursday, one day before the date scheduled for the dance.
Not surprisingly, everyone (myself included) looking forward to the dance received a nasty surprise when we learned the Alumni Center had a scheduling conflict and would not be hosting the formal. The change caused additional conflicts and canceled at least one date. Fortunately, the ESC managed to find an alternative location, but the dance was still delayed until Saturday night.
The dance is part of Engineering Week, or E-Week, a week of competitions between the engineering majors that includes the Bedlam race, which brought MSU national recognition in USA Today last year. The dance is the E-Week capstone where the results for the competitions are announced and the “Best Major On Campus” trophy is awarded. I am happy to note the trophy went to aerospace engineering.
While the cancellation may have resulted from a misunderstanding between the ESC and the Alumni Center-the ESC assumed the reservations were final and did not remain in contact with the center-that seems unlikely. Since reservation procedures vary from place to place, only the reserved party will know the rules for reservation. Thus, the reserved party should clarify the reservation procedure and ensure that everything goes smoothly. Even if there was a miscommunication, the Alumni Center is still responsible for it.
However, the ESC’s problems may have more sinister causes. It is easy to believe the conflict that caused the dance cancellation was another case of MSU abusing its students, like the parking situation during football games. Not only are students expected to park far away from their homes during football games, at least one residential parking lot-behind Hull-is requisitioned as VIP parking.
This policy mysteriously appeared after all parking in that lot had been suspended after the World Trade Center attacks for security reasons. Both aspects of the game day parking situation are ridiculous-just because it’s a game day does not mean the students should stop living in their halls-and they demonstrate how poorly the university can treat its students. No wonder so few students live on campus.
Of course, university employees around the world often harbor the opinion that students are little more than a nuisance, rather than the purpose of the institution. While private institutions may actually adopt this stance officially, a public school like MSU unequivocally exists for the students first.
What is most frustrating is the university treats its students well overall. Most of its employees and policies value the students, but this only makes the student abuses more egregious contradictions of the MSU spirit and atmosphere.
Interestingly, the abuses often occur when student interests or rights conflict with alumni interests. Both the parking situation behind Hull and the ESC dance cancellation suggest MSU favors its alumni over its students. As both an alumnus and a student, I find this ridiculous. Not only are the students future (and sometimes current) alumni, they pay the university for residential and educational services. They employ the school. Why would the school abuse its employers?
In part, because they can. The reported grievances are spread out enough, so they do not generate a sustained opposition. Other grievances are not voiced or are ignored by the administration, perhaps to avoid discord or because the issues are more easily ignored than addressed.
The same apathy that characterizes participation in the SA elections contributes as well. In many cases the students themselves do not care about what happens outside of their halls.
While the university generally treats its students well, the ESC formal cancellation and the ridiculous game day parking situation demonstrate that some abuses do occur. To counter these, the students must be willing to repeatedly express their grievances and watch out for each other.
Amusingly, though, the best group to address these abuses may be the alumni, whom the university clearly values. Thus, as alumni, we should make known to the administration that we insist the school provide each student with the best MSU experience possible.