Every year when a candidate is seeking office in the Undergraduate Student Government, the questions that is always is asked is “What are you going to do about student apathy?” It is a question I have wrestled with myself for the past two years in office, and I have absolutely no idea.
It isn’t just student government that students are apathetic towards; it’s everything. From raising your hand in class when a professor asks a question, to actually voting in student elections. Students just don’t care. The majority of them don’t read the newspaper, so they are completely oblivious to what’s happening on campus. I thought this year, with all of the school spirit that is being infused into campus along with a journalism department, things would get better. It seems like the opposite is true.
Last year, as a senator, I remember always seeing at least one reporter at senate meetings. We had reporters from the Press, the Independent, and the Statesman. This year, I have to beg and plead to get reporters to come to the meetings. I even went out of my way to get reporters to come to last week’s senate meeting because we were having members of the University Senate come to address student leaders and answer questions. Do you know how many reporters showed up? Not one. Pathetic.
During this unprecedented period of expansion in Stony Brook University’s history, there are a lot of issues that students face everyday. From housing concerns to food prices, these people took time out of their schedule to come and speak before the senate. While I believe that there was a great deal of intelligent discourse between the USG senators and the University senators, there were still no reporters to cover this and report back to the campus. To me, this is a blatant disregard of your duties as reporters. Instead of covering the NYC auto show, why don’t we know what’s happening on our campus?
The media has, in my opinion, gotten worse and worse. All of the media on campus, with the exception of Blackworld, seems to be on a downward spiral. Don’t we have a journalism school here? Why don’t we have more reporters spread out over campus and actually report what’s happening here? In the past, the papers have had no problem blasting USG for its lack of involvement, for having useless officers, and doing nothing for the students. Well, guess what, it’s my turn now. The media needs to get off their rear and do some actual reporting. Come on guys; let’s get it together.
Lastly, to end this little rant that I’m on, I want to also remind the media out there that we need them and we need them very much. When they showed up to senate meetings, and reported on what USG was doing, they instilled a certain level of accountability in us. By them being there, we knew that if we did or said anything that wasn’t in the interests of the students, they would make us know about it. Now we have nothing. This is not good for students. We need government officials that are accountable, and the only way this will happen is if we actually get questioned on what we’ve done or doing for the students.
The media can be very powerful, so, start flexing your muscle and report the news to the students, they really need it.
Jonathan Hirst is the Vice-President for Communications and Public Relations in the Undergraduate Student Government at Stony Brook University.
