It seems that Washington College is ridden with a bug lately. No, this is not about mono or the flu, but it is about a general apathy that seems more often than not to take hold of this campus.
Students complain that big bands do not perform at this school. Well, answer this, music fans, how many people showed up at the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert last semester? If one recalls correctly, the LFC wasn't exactly packed.
Maybe Big Bad Voodoo Daddy doesn't have multiple chart-topping hits, but they _are_ bigger than some of the more obscure, though not to say bad, bands that other schools comparable to our size book for big shows.
This raises the obvious issue: the Student Activities Board will eventually stop booking these more well-known bands (who come with well-known prices) if people continually ignore the shows performed on campus.
Recently, the SAB went so far as to extend the choice of this year's Earth Day band to the students in a vote. Granted, the man who won, Ben Harper, is unable to attend due to location and bidding wars, but the students were able to voice their opinion.
Some students may say, "What's the point of picking a band if they can't even get booked?"
Those same students must keep in mind that tour dates change, as well as the price for these bands to trek out to the remote location of Washington College.
Another example of the school asking for student input is in regard to the new Campus Center. Students have been here since before classes began to help plan the opening and scheduling that involves running the center.
The Café manager, Heather Russell, is a student. The Campus Center manager, Cynthia Briggs, is yet another student. These students and others are obviously doing their part to run a place where people can go until 2 a.m. and relax.
The least the student body could do is show up and attend events, rather than complain about the lack of lighting.
It is true that other schools have more elaborate student centers with huge glass windows and a plethora of specialty shops in which to eat. Well, guess what girls and boys, we don't go to a school of that magnitude that, at the present time, can accommodate such a huge space just for hanging out.
And we aren't going to get it by never stepping foot in the existing Campus Center or constantly ignoring the coffeehouses that the SAB has planned to host there.
The school will only respond to student interest and demand. We may not see overnight responses to what we want, but that's just practice for what the real world will be like.
So rather than going home for the weekend or complaining to your friends about how absolutely dead the campus is, take a look around at what's happening here. There may not be raging parties or tons of options, but there are other forms of entertainment at WC. It just may take a little work and even some guts to go check out a place you've never been before.
For some people, this may be the library.
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