Speak up, Flyers

By: KWYNN TOWNSEND RILEY- COLUMNIST, SOPHOMORE – COMMUNICATION

Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. in Sears Recital Hall was the time for University of Dayton students to step up.

Students had the opportunity to ask the president of UD any question wandering in our collegiate minds. We deserve to know what St. Patrick’s Day will be like after the incident last year. We deserve to know why classes aren’t canceled when campus looks like the town in the Disney movie “Frozen”. We need to know why things are happening on our campus without the voice of the students being equally represented.

It was time to step up to Dr. Dan, my fellow Flyers. It was time to get the answers we deserve. There are too many situations that have happened on campus that I, as a student, feel as if we were left out of when decisions were made.

Although the wound is slowly healing, the Coke to Pepsi switch was made without much consideration for the student population. There were no surveys, emails, tweets or articles that let the students know why there was going to be such a change, at least to my knowledge.

Personally, I felt disregarded. Everyone says college is what you make it, so I am choosing to make mine, and asked for some degree of change to happen, however that might play out.

There would be no University of Dayton without us. This school exists for us and is made in large part by us.

It’s time to ask the awkward and uncomfortable questions that probe the situation at hand. Compared to previous generations, we are growing up in a culture that takes action by way of Facebook and Twitter instead of approaching the issue face-to-face with those responsible. We would rather rant in tweets, Instagram posts, and to each other instead of taking a step to the person who can actually help change things.

If you care about our campus at all you would’ve attended the event Tuesday night. Otherwise, how would you expect anyone of true importance to hear your opinion, concern and problems with issues on campus? How do you expect the president to care about your views if you didn’t even express them on the night he was willing to listen?

Tuesday was the night to prove you wanted change. I had my own lists of questions lined up to ask our president. The two things that were definitely on my mind were the annual event “I Love UD” that deviates attention from Black History
Month and the dropping rate of African American students being enrolled at this school.

Things don’t change if questions are raised that challenge the status quo. Speak up, Flyers.