Some students might feel a professor might not care about their well-being. Some might feel that faculty and staff aren't interested in what happens to them.
American poet John Ciardi once said, "A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students."
And although this cynicism might linger in the minds of Ball State students, what faculty and staff did for Ben Smith proves otherwise.
Smith, who has been fighting colon cancer for four years, went into a coma last week. He inched closer to death, but kept breathing even without the help of a respirator.
But one of his professors, Ron Truelove, found out about Ben's condition last Monday and noticed he was one class away from graduating.
He then made calls to people in his department and across the university so Ben might finally receive his diploma.
Truelove remembered that Ben promised his mother he would graduate college, and he thought Ben stayed alive for as long as he did to fulfill his promise.
He cared enough to make calls. The people he called cared enough to help with the finalizing of the process. The bookstore even donated a frame for the diploma.
And Truelove personally drove the diploma down Tuesday to St. Francis Hospital in Indianapolis where Ben stayed.
Ben Smith died early the next morning. It was a good thing the faculty didn't waste any time finalizing his diploma. There weren't any meetings or conferences. Everyone knew what was at stake and hurried through the process.
And the faculty didn't have to do what they did for Ben. They could have just forgot about it or put the issue to the side.
And like Ben who never quit college, Truelove, the faculty and staff never gave up on helping Ben fulfill a promise.
They rose above the bureaucracy that sometimes plagues state institutions. They didn't hide behind forms and superfluous paperwork.
What the faculty did for Ben shows us the university has compassionate people working for it. What the faculty did shows the student body that they care about their well-being.
Professors are not just people who grade your papers or bore you while they lecture about class topics.
They are fellow human beings who care about all of us.
Too often it seems the university has dropped the ball or has done something questionable. But here, for once, we can proudly say our university helped someone who truly needed it.
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