Most people will probably agree with me when I say that the atmosphere of the Ball State campus is not exactly the best right now. There is a heavy feeling in the air.
Disagree? Just take a look at the online edition of the Daily News sometime and check out the comments people are posting at the end of stories, columns and editorials. There you will see students attacking the administration, the University Police Department, the Muncie Police Department, the Whitely neighborhood, the Daily News, the Student Government Association, the greek community on campus and each other.
Obviously, this has been an extremely difficult year at Ball State for everyone. We have seen the deaths of five of our own, and even if we as individuals knew none of them personally, we all took part in the loss in at least some small way.
We together may be experiencing one of the darkest hours in the history of our university. There are more problems than there are solutions right now, and it seems like every day something new happens that is troubling. Those things combined, as we are all finding out, can take a massive toll on people emotionally.
We get angry, stop thinking rationally and quickly point our finger at whoever our knee-jerk reaction tells us is responsible. Sometimes we may be right. Sometimes we may be wrong. But the rage that has filled us due to stress and frustration blinds us, and we tell ourselves we feel better because the responsibility is off of us.
Now tell me this: Is the blame game working?
How many of us really feel safer, happier or better off just because we can say that the bad things that have been happening are not our responsibility?
Now, I am not saying that we need to take everything upon ourselves as being our fault or anything like that. What I am saying is that jumping on the people responsible -- or those we deem responsible -- for Ball State's problems like a pack of wolves may not be the best way to get things accomplished on this campus.
I am not going to push for activism here, because those who are going to actively try to address Ball State's problems are most likely already doing it. What I am going to propose is that if we are not willing to do anymore than just rant about who is at fault, then we can at least do it in some kind of constructive way.
It is easy for any of us just to call people names and point out their flaws, but that doesn't get us anywhere. It sounds amazingly simplistic, but step back a second and think. Put yourself in the other's shoes. If you still feel the need to jump all over someone, try to do so in a productive way. Don't just list problems; come up with some solutions.
Believe it or not, 99.99 percent of people here never wanted all the bad things that have been associated to Ball State this past year to happen. Sadly, we cannot go back now and change the past. What we can do is try to improve our university and Muncie so we can avoid future tragedies. That is not going to happen overnight, but it can all start now.
Step one: Be considerate of others.
Remember, we are all in this together. Take care of each other.
Write to Cole at cpmcgrath@bsu.edu
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