On Wednesday, while hanging around the DIGEST offices preparing for the two-a-week papers next month, I received a text message from the photography editor requesting pictures for a meeting in the music building. After getting more information, I rushed over with pad, pen and recorder in hand, ready to listen to the events unfold, secretly hoping for a good story in the process.
What I was met with was an auditorium of passionate students who called a meeting with the chancellor to discuss their musical careers and if Southern allowed them to complete their curriculums. Questions seeking validation for six-figure salaries of those only seen in print commenting on the ills of the school, demanding valid communication in the administration-to faculty-to student line, all made this meeting unlike any other I’ve attended while enrolled in the university.
This was nothing more than the manifestation of what appears to be the end of Southern as we know it. And it may not be a bad thing.
When has this generation ever been credited with standing up for their beliefs in a serious setting, especially those of academic proportions?
Directly questioning authority to secure an intellectual investment that reflects their higher education goals—when have Southern students ever been counted in this number? Sure, we chose Southern, but the days of blindly trusting a figurehead to make good on their lip-service are slowly disappearing, as evidenced by a handful of music majors.
I’m proud to have been there both as a student and a journalist, to have the ability to document a tangible change in a world where ‘change’ is becoming a backhand compliment to, as one student so elegantly put it, “shut us up.”
Perhaps the students of Southern will stop senselessly complaining about poor entertainment, and open their eyes to the bigger, denser picture of their HBCU education, especially in light of recent arguments that schools like ours are ‘obsolete.’ That racism doesn’t exist because we have one black president among the other 43. Perhaps we’ll begin to ask the hard questions, and man and woman up for the harsh answers given. The school is in trouble. The faculty and staff is diminishing. Programs are losing money and will continue to do so in the coming years unless a surplus is found before the regular session. Maybe YOUR major, YOUR department, YOUR college may be next to experience a lack of clarity and unanswered questions.
As the black community gears up to honor our own in the coming months, I urge you to ask yourself an important question: When the time comes, will you be ready to do what your musical colleagues have done?
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SU students must ‘face the music’
February 2, 2009
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