More and more I’m reminded about just how entitled members of this student body are, and how little they own up to that fact. Many, and not all, but many, Cobbers choose interesting hills to die on.
I’m so tired of hearing people complain about how expensive Concordia is. Every school is expensive right now; there’s a freaking economic bubble in education that is going to explode all over us. Concordia has no control over the economic standing of the education system in this country. I’m not sorry to break that to you.
I’m equally tired of the same students who complain about tuition turning around and being the first to sling mud in the college’s face by calling for better food in DS, new performance spaces, new buildings, cleaner spaces, better Wi-Fi, anything and everything.
If I hear one more person complain about how bad the food in DS is I’ll probably burst. Have you ever eaten in the Pioneer Dining Hall at the University of Minnesota? I’d love for you to go there and them come back and complain about Anderson Commons. One more person tells me how the “crappy Wi-Fi” prevented them from watching Netflix all night, or even finishing their homework, and I’ll erupt. The ITS center put in thousands of hours this summer putting new wireless access routers in every single dorm room on campus.
Many Cobbers to me seem like ungrateful children when their parents give them literally everything they possibly can, but it is not good enough. “Someone across the river has it better. ‘X’ school across the country does this better than Concordia does.”
Here’s the thing, I am patronizing you right now. Your “parents” — the members of this college who work on the Board of Regents or the President’s Cabinet —President Craft, Bruce Vieweg, Teresa Harland, Linda J. Brown, Karl Stumo, and the thirty members of the Board of Regents— they love you. They love this campus, this community, and they are doing their absolute best to make this campus as beautiful as it can be. That takes money, something no one has. That takes time, something no one is willing to give up. Our new science facilities are going to attract hundreds of students; I’m sorry that it takes fiscal and moral precedence over giving you the ability to lay a bath bomb in the freshmen dorms, eat tiramisu, and sip on wine. This college existed before you, and it will hopefully exist after you. This means that the President, his cabinet and the Board of Regents have to sacrifice some of your wants for the needs of the college.
There are so many better things to take stake in. Can Concordia create a space that is welcoming to the international students it boasts about or is the student body going to continue to ignore them? Is the college, student body and leader- ship willing to take more active stances on protecting those few black, Hispanic and Asian students who, yes, do experience racism on our campus? What about the differing images of mental health support the school places in advertisements? These questions and many more are worth fighting for, but they’re not worth complaining about. You are wasting your mental and physical power by complaining to your classmates instead of working with those in leadership who can and want to help.
This article was contributed to The Concordian by an outside writer. Questions and comments on this article should be directed to concord@cord.edu.
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