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St. Cloud State University
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Commentary
Campus has responsibility to stay informed on issues
Published:
Monday, December 9, 2002
When Washington Post subscribers across the nation picked up their newspapers Wednesday, they read about the proposed settlement of the first-ever class action anti-Semitism lawsuit against an American university -- our university.
Funny thing is, some students at SCSU didn't know about it. This both surprised and disappointed the University Chronicle editorial board.
Despite the fact that the St. Cloud Times, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and University Chronicle -- newspapers readily-available on campus -- also carried news of the settlement, some SCSU students chose not to educate themselves about a significant event happening in their own backyard. One student even had the nerve to blame the university administration for keeping the settlement "hush-hush" when he only had himself to blame for not knowing what happened.
The fact that those students have been blind to a situation that has been brewing for the past three years -- and that they failed to acknowledge it until now -- is indicative of a much larger problem: students are not interested in the goings-on at their university.
If the status quo remains, these students aren't going to notice when future problems arise. Consequently, solutions to those problems will not be fully understood; it's hard to comprehend the why of a solution when you don't know about the problem that brought it about. The example, in this case: only the people who knew about the how and why of the lawsuit settlement will understand reason behind the new Jewish Studies and Resource Center.
This lawsuit and settlement should be a wake-up call to students who are hearing about this problem for the first time: they need to pay attention, to get involved and know what's happening on campus. Education isn't confined to inside of the classroom; self-education is an on-going process that occurs beyond institutions.
It is the responsibility of all who attend SCSU and those who work here to be aware of issues on campus, even if by only reading a newspaper or talking to other students, faculty or staff members.
Not knowing what's going on at your university is like being oblivious to what's going on in your own house.
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