op-ed
Doctor Munson,
The culture we experience in college life binds us to an environment that constantly puts our mental health at risk — more than we may sometimes like to admit. This culture is incredibly toxic.
When promises are made in response to dire needs, there is often a tendency to sit back and congratulate ourselves on an accomplished objective. We fought; they promised to fix things; we stopped. There is also another tendency however, for promises to be made — and not fulfilled, or for progress to be unacceptably slow.
Jamil Khashoggi died after engaging in a brawl, California firefighters should fight fires with rakes and an RIT student fell to his death on Halloween evening. Do you believe any one of these examples of “fake news?” You shouldn’t. In Washington, we have journalists to keep administrators honest. On campus, without the Reporter, we have no one to do so.
Dear RIT Administration, We are all members of RIT’s community: tens of thousands of people who live and work on this campus in a brick city that we call home. We are, in essence, citizens of this city. As citizens, we deserve to know more about the decisions and processes that impact our school, our home and our lives.
This op-ed was written before RIT's latest press release on Nov. 5, 2018. RIT, I am a recent graduate and I wanted to share my experiences and great disappointment at what is happening at the school.
Many of us have our lives planned out — sketched into a mental map of our future, with all its goals and ambitions. Path and plan are our translation of the future and all it may be. It’s an odyssey — journeying through college, sailing along with the voyage of life. It feels as if you are at the helm, captain of the ship, free of strife.
You've arrived — the pin on the map, your next destination. You arrived but a few weeks ago, or perhaps a few years ago. Maybe you have since settled in. Maybe you dove in and haven’t settled since.
Welcome to RIT. In four or five short years, you will leave this place, like I just have, and RIT will try to take advantage of that. Now, don't get me wrong, RIT is a wonderful school and a great place to learn. But it is also plagued with bureaucratic bullshit that will make mistakes, make promises and then conveniently forget about them when the majority of students have moved on.
Folks tell me I get too excited about Work People Jokes Happenstance. They’d rather a temperament more temperate. There’s nothing memorable about a being So balmy. Gusts knock us off our feet, so should gesture With gusto. There’s no thrill in a game played on easy, and I don't want to be a weepy wanderer. I want to enjoy, really Enjoy
I have been too quiet at times. I have actively chosen to be a passive member of the communities and organizations I am part of. There have been moments when I have held my tongue and kept myself from contributing to the conversation. I am not proud of that. I have also said too much. I have walked into encounters with only one direction in mind. I have not always been so empathetic to the opinions of others. I am certainly not proud of that either.
This is an essay regarding my perception of a personal hero, and how a short article by Neil Strauss changed it for the better.
They see me. They see me not. Write another paper, hand it in. They see me. They see me not. Take another exam, hand it in. They see me. They see me not. Write an application. Submit it. Maybe it’s for grad school or a full time job. The goal is to stand out, to catch someone’s eye.
This is an overture, and I am over churning the same problems over and over and over again. It’s like we’ve been chewing on the same piece of gum for so long, we’ve gone numb to its flavour, and yet it still sticks.
Dear editors, Reporter magazine: In response to your Oct. 27 story written by Frankie James Albin, I would like to expand on how members of the RIT community have the ability to report inappropriate behavior of a sexual or discriminatory nature.
The pace is different here. That’s the first thing I noticed when I moved to RIT. While I would have felt totally fine moseying on by, folks here would sprint from sunrise to sunset. Cultural differences, when combined with the vibrant energy of a college campus, collectively harbored this infectious sense of urgency.
I’m afraid of letting the people I care about down. I’ve got butterflies in my belly and the ache to prove it. The start of any semester can be rather tumultuous. Only a few days in, we realize the arduous nature of the workload we have taken on. Expectations quake as incentives wane and some students find themselves having to choose between the responsibilities they signed up for.
Dear President Munson and Provost Haefner,
Accessibility is a quintessential component for quality of life. Last year, I recall listening to a provocative conference keynote address by Patricia Moore on the humanity of design in its present state. Sitting in Booth’s Webb Auditorium, the crowd of students was eagerly poked and prodded by her piercing words as Moore shed light on the current weaknesses of the industry — areas of opportunity for us all in the crowd.
Where are you going? I ask myself this question before making all major decisions. It brought me to Rochester. It guided me to the flagpoles and roundabout entrance of the RIT campus, GPS chiming in with “turn left” and then “you have reached your destination.”
What I got out of the experience, how you can do the same, and why you should.
Editor's note for the March 2017 issue of Reporter.