This past week I attended two of the bigger events on campus. One of them unites most organizations on campus to celebrate ethnic diversity and harmony, and the other one unites organizations on campus to cut budgets.
I’m kidding.
I’m talking about the Ethnic Student Council’s Unity event and the Student Government Association’s semesterly budget meeting—”the big, bad budget meeting” as one senator called it. While these two events are polar opposites, I took away an appreciation for what both events’ organizers are trying to (and in one case required to) accomplish.
At Unity, I saw only two performances, but was able to see the whole event through a different lens. My closest friends are in FAST and CSA, the Filipino and Chinese student organizations at Stevens respectively. For several weeks before the event, I saw my friends go, leave, rehearse, create props, and scramble to prepare for one of Stevens’ bigger events of the year.
When LED-lit Chinese fans were built and Filipino flag-colored tape were wrapped around 7-foot bamboo poles, the show went on. Although I was never into the Unity showcase at heart, watching my friends onstage, my presence unbeknownst to them, and seeing what I know was hard work paying off as the crowd laughed, cheered, and “aw”-ed at the right places, brought a smile to my face.
Although I wasn’t a member of these organizations, I saw the merit of students working on something they cared about for its own sake. I dig that.
From an entertainment spectacle to what became a multi-day meeting about the financial state of student organizations at campus, the SGA’s budget meeting brought a whole different lens for me to gain some perspective.
Admittedly, I came into this meeting with The Stute’s Business Manager pretty fired up. We had a Google Document filled with stats, counterpoints to potential points raised by the SGA senators, answers to questions, and the beginning of what will debut next budget meeting as “Budget Meeting BINGO.” I was a bit bruised after last year’s SGA debacle, with a certain senator motioning to nullify The Stute’s budget—and one-third of the senatorial body voting in agreement.
However, with just one budgetary question and a sense of general satisfaction from the SGA about The Stute’s 20% budget reduction, The Stute’s budget was approved and the next item was addressed. Drastically different from last year’s experience, this year makes me hopeful about the future of The Stute, and its relations to the SGA.
When I finally disabled my defense and left the meeting (which would continue past 2 a.m. and resume over the next few days), I was able to see the same care and passion that my friends had for Unity. Granted, taking funds away from organizations won’t garner any popularity for the SGA, but they do the job they have to do, and they, overall, do it with care.
Now, this editorial isn’t about promoting the SGA, no. This editorial is about my realization (or re-realization) of not only the amount of work students put into their respective organizations on campus while juggling co-ops, classes, work, and the ever-evasive social life, but also how passion is such a determinant of the quality of work we as humans do.
Perhaps this may seem a bit lofty and is definitely somewhat sappy, but as my final analog, take a look at The Stute. Unlike some other universities, we are not compensated for our work on the newspaper. Heck, the newspaper isn’t even commissioned by the school! We exist as a student organization, a club.
We meet every week and spend hours reporting, photographing, designing, and laying out a newspaper, not because we are asked to or are paid to, but because we feel a sense of obligation to do so, and that’s not a bad thing.
Despite what people feel about the school at an administrative level, we as Stevens students are driven by a passion to provide better things for this school, and every student in it. Sure, the folks at Unity want to beat the reigning ethnic student organization, the SGA has to get themselves out of a deficit, and The Stute just doesn’t stop running, but these reasons aren’t the only ones for students putting in time they don’t have to put toward student organizations.
It’s something I’m trying to be more conscious of, but remember that beyond the surface of that Duck After Dark event, Jam performance, or table outside of Pierce, there are students working hard to better this campus in some way, shape, or form.
Hopefully they are driven by passion, too.
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