Author:
With the fall semester underway, many students – new and old – may already find themselves overwhelmed by the vastness of the on-campus demographic, struggling to keep from drowning in the roaring sea of new faces. While the size student body cannot yet be described as exorbitant, the spike in enrollment seems to suggest that the college, our college, is straying from its supposed commitment to maintaining an intimate academic setting. Crowded classrooms and cramped campus spaces do not facilitate the formation of a tight-knit community, nor do they demonstrate Occidental’s apparent dedication to its student body.
It seems the administration has jumped headfirst down a very slippery slope, at the bottom of which awaits a sterile, homogeneous campus protected by a wall of noncommittal, uninformative PR comments.
That being said, I want to ensure all of you, both our loyal readers and those of you delving into our publication for the first time, that The Occidental Weekly will remain steadfast in its traditions. It is easy to lose oneself in the flurry of academia, to feel obligated to adapt to one’s institutional surroundings rather than to enact change. As an organization, we at The Weekly aim to squelch such sentiments, to abolish apathy, to inspire a campus of thinkers to become a campus of doers.
I encourage everyone to use our publication as the voice of the student body. Write a letter to the editor, submit an article as a contributor, or best of all, apply to join the staff and make the changes you want internally. While we strive to meet the needs of the campus to the best of our ability, we acknowledge that we do not stand as a perfect publication: We too make mistakes. If you catch something we missed, correct us. If you want an issue addressed, inform us. We cannot serve a silent campus.
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
