A New Disease

Tuesday afternoon at a town meeting set for students and faculty with President Loren Swartzendruber, less than 15 students showed up.

The WeatherVane, the most visible student voice on campus struggles to find people willing to be on staff.

With around 50 students involved, the Young People's Christian Association, is smaller than ever before. Chapel attendance has slacked to an average of 179 on any given day. This includes faculty and staff.

This past week an article in the WeatherVane disclosed the fact that EMU' fan attendance at men and women's basketball games rank at the bottom of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. These are all different signs of a problem on our campus. This problem is more serious than our endowment, aging facilities, or even the cafeteria food. The problem is apathy, and it's a disease of our generation that is apparent here at EMU and across our nation.

We are a generation who care more about who is hooking up on MTV's "The Real World" than what is actually happening in the real world. While the world is full of violence and poverty many of us have been raised, in the eyes of the world, in very wealthy homes. Most of us never had to ask where our next meal will come from or where we will sleep at night because our needs have always been met.

Because the students of our generation have been raised with everything, we have lost something. Maybe its the ability to dream of something bigger, or maybe we are just too lazy to step away from our video games and reality TV to make a difference. No, not even make a difference, just to get involved in something bigger than ourselves.

In the midst of student apathy on campus was a sign of hope on Monday night. The forum on Iraq packed out Common Grounds with primarily students. Even more impressively, it was organized by students.

If we students continue to be apathetic about our education, life and university then the future is bleak. The amount of learning and fulfillment we receive from our life and schooling is proportional to how much we invest, so start caring.

Shalom,

Dan