Students make sure our house is in order

I know this is supposed be a sports related editorial and in a roundabout kind of way this is sports related…Well at least its school related. We are approaching the conclusion of Homecoming 2001: A Reunion on the Bluff; Ya think it’s a game, and so far things have been quite nice. The campus looks nice, the alumni are having fun with the students, and the campus atmosphere as a whole just seems to be a whole lot lighter.
My thoughts are simply why was the campus so much cleaner this week, than it usually is? Sure, we do have a relatively nice campus, but if we are honest with ourselves, we all know that we are all guilty of at one time or another of being a litterbug. Why are we so hard pressed to show former students of Southern University how well groomed we keep our school for one week? Do you think homecoming week is the only time alumni and visitors come to this school?
Everyday we have people who walk onto SU’s campus for the first time and they see trash. You go to the back, in the area between Satterwhite and Moore and you see trash that was thrown off the second and third floors of the dorm, by the residents of that dorm. Those are the days we should be concerned about, not how alumni are going view the campus for the one-week they are here.
We have groups of high school students who visit our campus to help them decide which school to attend to further their education. What do they see when they walk towards the union? Taco Bell bags, ARAMARK cups and McDonalds fry containers on the ground, usually beside a trashcan. How hard is it to take a little extra effort to throw something in the trash, to care about the condition of our campus every day.
As students who have to walk on this campus every day we should be conscious of how anyone who steps foot of this campus will view us as a student body and as a school.
Homecoming is a time to come home again. A time to come home and see if things are as you left it, better than before or worse than before. For former students of Southern, this is a time to be reminded of a place that was once your home away from home. Alumni come back to Southern University to show current students that they are still “so glad” they went to Southern U. Current students should want to present the best side of SU every day not only on special occasions like Homecoming and on Founders’ Day.
In closing I would just like to say be mindful of your house, Southern University – Baton Rouge campus is our house, students we must make sure our house is in order every day of every week.