As a university we pride ourselves, sometimes a little too much, on our favorite motto: “Think and do.” We often hold ourselves up to these standards, solving issues facing our university, yet, as always, other serious problems still need to be addressed. As students return to campus for the beginning of the 2016-17 academic year it’s important to take a moment to discuss the issues we’ve worked toward resolving in the past year and highlight the problems we still need to tackle.
Our campus made important strides in taking steps toward solving mental health issues. Throughout the year, the majority of the campus community began viewing mental health as a serious issue, like breaking a bone or getting the flu. Our Counseling Center and the student Mental Health Ambassadors provided beneficial mental health care and helped create this understanding through educational outreach programs, such as the center’s drop-in groups or the Mental Health Ambassadors university presentations.
NC State also had impactful and significant dialogue about race on campus. Highlighted best by the Town Hall on racial climate, when students of all races and ethnicities came together to discuss racial issues in the aftermath of the offensive CMT vs. BET party. These conversations continued throughout the year, helping to eliminate racial issues on campus.
However, while our racial conversation has made significant, positive strides, race issues still remain on campus and these discussions need to continue. As a campus we still need to actively work to eliminate racial issues. Speak up when you hear insensitive comments, support groups such as Multicultural Student Affairs and the Nubian Message that foster a positive racial atmosphere, and most importantly, ensure that your actions support this positive atmosphere.
As with racial problems on campus, our university needs to seriously look at sexual assault within our community. Nationally, one in five women and one in 16 men will be sexually assaulted while in college.
Campaigns such as “It’s On Us” are helpful at fostering awareness, yet they still fall short of creating impactful and long-term change within our community, change that needs to be made soon. Understanding the complex issue of sexual assault and how cases are judged, learning how to intervene as a bystander, volunteering at a rape crisis center and sharing helpful resources with survivors are all ways to enforce this change.
The university should also address concerns related to Fraternity and Sorority Life. NC State’s fraternities and sororities, through smart programming and charitable events, can positively impact lives in numerous ways. Yet, their name is often tarnished from negative reports, ranging from racial slurs to sexual assault.
In March of 2015, a little green book was found on campus containing deplorable racist and sexist comments from members of NC State’s Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. The administration immediately began an investigation, but a year and a half later, the campus has yet to be notified of the investigation’s findings, and limited changes to our campus’ Fraternity and Sorority Life have been made.
Looking closer at Fraternity and Sorority Life and ensuring that all of NC State’s fraternities and sororities are acting in a beneficial and respectful way, as most of them do, will only help our university. If you are in a fraternity or sorority, hold your fellow members accountable to your organization’s values.
Lastly, NC State, as a student body, needs to work actively to monitor the higher authorities, which create decisions that impact much of our educational experience. From the UNC Board of Governors to the chancellor’s office, to even our own Student Government, it’s up to our student body to scrutinize those in authority and ensure that the decisions they make help us as much as it can.
Going forward today, it would be foolish to believe our university lacks serious problems. Working together as an entire campus community we can solve our issues and move past them to even better places.
