MANY STUDENTS can reduce college life to three elements: classes, weekends and college sports. While these three are enough to provide each individual a solid college experience, our University distinguishes itself, among other ways, through the hard work, energy and financial resources poured into its extracurricular activities. The plethora of activities and resources available to students, as well as the installed system of self-governance, make this University what it is, and what it should be. Unfortunately, to many students, "self-governance" is nothing other than that buzzword thrown around at orientation by people who know what it means.
For example, few students are aware of a program provided by the Arts & Sciences Council that allocates $45 to any student who wants to take a professor out to lunch. While many of us sit in lecture classes with up to 500 of our peers, we find ourselves listening to our professors deferentially with no hope of establishing a one-on-one relationship. Many of them come across as larger-than-life avatars of success, academic deities among mortals. Many students unfortunately never get to know their professors on a personal level -- the level which provides the greatest pedagogical value. The Arts & Sciences Council is aware of this and has attempted to assuage the disadvantage of a large undergraduate school by paying for student-professor lunches. Nonetheless, attempts to publicize this opportunity have not reached all, and many students let four years go by without ever knowing that such a wonderful opportunity exists.
To examine another example, we can turn to $12 of the student activities fee levied at the commencement of the academic year. According to the Department of Drama, "$4 goes to the Music Department, $4 goes to the Department of Drama, $2 goes to the Art Department and Bayly Art Museum, and $2 goes to the Virginia Film Festival." Many are unaware that in exchange for this small fee, students can go to $60 worth of plays and musicals in the Drama Department for free, as well as $15 worth of screenings at the Virginia Film Festival, a combined total of $75 of activities. Again, there is an opportunity that many students simply are not aware of, much to the frustration of those who provide for it.
Furthermore, many underestimate the resources and capabilities of our class governments. The Second-Year Council has thrown many events, ranging from major fairs to tailgates before soccer games that were probably under-attended because few students were aware that they existed. Or, for example, I'd bet my favorite fiddle that many second years are ignorant of the ongoing Second Year Dinner Series, a class dinner involving a University professor (College Dean Edward Ayers last time and Vice President of Development and Public Affairs Bob Sweeney next time, Monday Nov. 8). In an interview, Second-Year President Ross Baird explicitly expressed a desire to reach the students who are unaware of such programs. "The point of the Second-Year Dinner Series is to check in with second-year students, and reconnect everyone to the University community," Baird said. "I hope the e-mails and publicity can reach the students who aren't already plugged in, but we really want to push as hard as we can to reach everyone." Nonetheless, class councils have generally been unsuccessful in making that reach. Furthermore, the example about the Second-Year Dinner Series is just one among many; all class councils have a wealth of resources and are quite accommodated to throwing under-attended events.
With so many events and opportunities, it's hard to know why a considerable portion of the University seems distant. While it's easy to blame the communications and publicity boards of the organizations and providers, the problem more likely exists in a fundamental misunderstanding of the reified concept of self-governance. Many students attend the University for four years and walk out of here with an acclaimed degree, but could not tell you how the University functions, and where certain responsibilities lay. Few recognize the acronym BOV, an acronym widely used among those serving on student governments. And even fewer are aware of its functions. Our university's students, a spectacular bunch indeed, also happen to be a privileged bunch, many of them adapted to being explicitly told of opportunities or even being forced to take opportunities. In turn, those who have that initiative enjoy all the perks, while others are left behind, not because they are lazy, but because they do not understand the potential that lies with a system of self-governance.
While councils should make more aggressive publicity efforts, students should be encouraged to explore the diverse array of opportunities made available to them. Because the University sees no problem in forcing students to take certain disagreeable requirements (language), perhaps it should also invest in setting up classes or mandatory sessions (not at orientation, where students are already bombarded with information) that educate students about how they can personally use self-governance to achieve all that they wish. But until the University takes such an unlikely measure, I hope this column serves to remind students that our experience at this University, like life itself, is truly determined by what we make of it.
Sina Kian's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at skian@cavalierdaily.com.
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