Ugh. Waking up Sunday morning is rarely a pleasant experience. Everything was pointing to this being one of the worst wake-ups in my life. I turn 21 this Tuesday, so I got to celebrating a tad bit early this weekend (You think Hanover Po is going to charge me with 'Internal underage possession of a hangover'?).
But today I woke up with a new sense of purpose . Let me explain. Like many juniors, I have begun to question everything. What I am going to be doing in a year and a half? What do I want to do with my life?
That's just for starters. These damn questions begin to get more and more pressing. What do I want to do with myself for my last year of college? And then the reflection comes... What have I been doing my first three years?
Being a firm believer in the validity of questions and doubts, I began to explore these questions further. I have to admit that I was aided by a blitz I received concerning my last editorial. A campus leader, who I used to do Freshman Council and S.A. with, was offended and hurt by my last column concerning student government. He asked me what had happened to my altruism, and accused me of being part of the problem rather than the solution. I began to wonder if he was right.
So I sit here wondering what I should be doing with myself. What I could be doing with myself. The answer: not much right now considering my hangover and that I haven't even gotten dressed yet.
But the real question has been gnawing at me deeply for the past week. What do I want to do with my last year at Dartmouth? Do I really want to try to change the problems that I see with this institution and write about weekly? Is just identifying the problem and cracking a one liner about it enough? (The answer to the latter, probably the only damn answer in this column, is 'no.' If it were 'yes' this column would be about the new type of student Dartmouth is trying to attract with an $800 DBA minimum: The creative lard-ass.)
Do I have what it takes to personally make an impact in the student body? Do I want to dedicate my full time and energy to generating some type of movement to create an avenue for positive change? That's really all that a student leader can do, create an avenue. Given those avenues a student body can do almost anything that they truly want done. However, until those avenues are created, through hours of stress and frustrating meetings, we will all continue to sit around and bitch about the new abuse of the week and nothing will get done.
Faced with this dilemma I have come to a conclusion. I want to spend my senior year trying to create such an avenue for change. I realize that I probably will never see any real change at Dartmouth while I'm an undergrad, but to help found a movement that could begin to fulfill the truly awesome potential of this college, is what I want to do. I am ready to stop just bitching and joking about the continual abuse of students on this campus. I'm ready to try to enact change.
Taking my first step, fresh from the agony of self-debate, I am announcing this resurrection of my former way of thinking. If you share in my concerns, if you want to create such a movement to put student voices and views where they deserve, to give power back to the student body, and to leave this place a bit different than when we arrived, take action. Let us create a Student Assembly and a Student Government with the support of the Student Body.
