When I look back on my years at Missouri Southern, there are many things which form my memories.

However, there has not been anything like my fellow Chart staff members to keep my sanity from breaking years ago. From the standpoint of The Chart, one will see the largest portion of campus without necessarily interacting with it. Yes, sometimes members will step beyond the bounds of the newspaper realm and join a certain organization here and there. But, as long as they keep their objectivity with that organization, it’s OK. The point of a college education is to experience something more than what one is comfortable with. This is the standard stepping-outside-the-comfort-barrier cliché. Students who don’t wish to experience this will definitely miss out on something.

We don’t have to get drunk and run around like idiots to be college students. We don’t have to have a lot to do. The challenge is to do the most with that available to us. Southern and the Joplin area are, as we know, small and lacking in certain entertainment areas. Everyone knows this. I don’t have to stick someone with a hot poker before they understand there’s only so much. Yet, as I draw back to my original topic, I know those at Southern have gone the extra distance to find something to do.

The Campus Activities Board is the perfect example of students doing what they can to get something going. Here, a handful of students work endlessly to get no praise. They ask and sometimes beg for students to come and tell them what they want to do. When no one shows up, they do the best they can and put on a small event. It’s pretty obvious in the equation: no one shows up, nobody does anything, and the campus says the Board didn’t do anything. Again, if they didn’t show up, they can’t see what’s going on. It’s a slippery slope to simply accuse organization after organization of not doing anything. They do stuff and have a blast. Foreign language students come together for dances, get-togethers and fun times. I’ve seen it. I’ve reported it.

Student Senate broke the boundaries over the past few years and took up several new projects. There were heated arguments. There was shouting on the floor. I saw it. I reported it.

Students are apathetic but only because they don’t actually step outside that comfort zone everyone talks about. Of course everyone complains, they just don’t know what goes on across the campus. As a student journalist, I’ve seen the events nobody attends. They’re great. Sure, sometimes the newspaper messes up and things don’t go in. That’s life, and we hopefully learn from our mistakes. But that doesn’t mean students should remain quiet.

It’s their newspaper, not just ours. They have a right to tell the newspaper their event is important. It’s a give-and-take scenario. Taking into consideration all that happens on this campus, students have no right to say there is a lack of any interest in anything at all. It’s more like a web of activities with people naturally separating out until they don’t see what’s really going on. Come people, you don’t have to be a reporter to go to every event.