Chris Banyas
Editor-in-Chief
I’ve heard a lot of things about a lot of things since assuming the position, (the editor position that is) and a lot of them go something like this: Vailas is nothing more than a jackbooted Mussoliniesque dictator who asserts complete control as often as possible and is so out of touch with the students and staff of ISU that he might as well be opposing the liberal dispersal of a certain noble gas upon the surface of the angry red planet.
“Come on Cohaagen! Give deeze people ehyar!”
But hey man, at least the busses run on time, am I right?
This is routinely followed up by something to the effect of: did you know that various members in the administration are essentially Bondesque villains collaborating and plotting to keep students in the dark and things going their way through the liberal application of evil pursuits such as nepotism? Do you even know what circumstances these people left their previous positions and came to ISU under? A veritable rogues gallery of villains are believed by these people to occupy “the castle” in what I can only assume makes spending any time at all on this campus similar to staring at the menu screen of Mega Man II, trying to decide which boss and power you want to pursue next. (You totally don’t want to take on Crash Man first. He will ruin you.)
Or how about this one: ISU does a sub-par-job of taking care of its graduate students, and could largely be compared to an apathetic dead-beat-dad of a parent, lusting after any pursuit which might allow him to obtain the next piece of bling, Limp Bizkit album, or a new pair of sneakers, while his children, the fledgling graduate students, flail about before stumbling from the nest and crashing into the forest floor, mere inches away from the waiting maw of the debtors.
Another sentiment, which has made its way into my ear canal routinely, is this: it is the job of the student newspaper to take on every single issue that any disaffected staff member has ever experienced, has ever caused a professor to lose sleep over, or has led to someone taking the “Charlie-Brown-head-down-suicide-imminent-walk-of-shame” through the snow back to the parking lot after a long day of teaching set to the melancholic tones of, presumably, Schroeder’s piano.
“Open your mind Quaid.”
Here’s the thing about this newspaper: it may be sad for many to realize this, but without people who are willing to come forward and even talk about things anonymously, let alone actually go on the record, nothing happened.
I received an anonymous letter to the editor this week, which contained a poem that “was written by a student who would like to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. She/he would like to see it in print in the Bengal.”
Please find said poem somewhere in the adjoining space.
It goes without saying there is a massive rift between many of the faculty and many of the members of the administration at ISU, and while the poem is said to have been written by a student, I would not be surprised it was written by a faculty member.
If you don’t understand this, you just might need to take five minutes to read up on things like, oh, I don’t know, how the faculty senate was dissolved at ISU in what could be described as a Kristallnacht fashion, the controversy that boiled over regarding the presidential housing fiasco, or the exodus of ISU professors to greener pastures.
And I totally get where many of these people are coming from when they say that they are fearful of administrative retaliation against them should they come forward and speak about anything.
There is another “happening” that is whispered about in back alleys and the dark corners of pubs surrounding campus, how the administration has taken direct action to squash certain individuals for coming out about controversial things that might make them look bad.
Again, if people won’t talk about it, it didn’t happen.
The vision which has slowly become more and more fleshed out inside my mind with each stroke of the brush over the six years I have been at ISU is of the “oppressed faculty” as bespectacled communist party members working tirelessly in an underground shelter lit only by a bare bulb, continuously cranking on the sole surviving printing press that takes up the majority of the living space in their headquarters while above them Nazi invaders massacre their countrymen. Dust continually falls in thick bands with each new shell detonation above them, the light flinching, falling back for a few moments before gathering the courage to shine again.
Stepping back from the imagination station for a moment, it needs to be said that while I sympathize with these people, I am in a totally different position.
I do not have a family to care for; I do not have a mortgage, a car payment, medical bills, or any other obligation, which requires the constant allocation of funds from a responsible individual.
I do not have to worry about possibly losing my source of income and the ramifications of that should I be fired for speaking out about any number of things.
But there is another side to this these people need to realize.
In three short weeks I will have only one semester remaining, after which I will be unleashed upon the world like a swarm of locusts, the Black Plague, Metallica before they cut their hair, the Twilight movies, pet rocks, Herp Alpert and the Tijuana Brass LPs before the advent of the cassette and CD, pogs, LA Lights shoes, Che Guevara shirts, Pokemon, Taylor Swift, crack cocaine in the ‘80s, Meth in the ‘90s, and religion in all times.
So there you go: these “ISU issues” certainly matter to me as they are impacting my University, but my stay here is ephemeral. At the end of the day, I will receive my diploma, crack the chrysalis with my egg tooth, spread my wings and fly away.
And while I have the utmost faith in the staff that will carry on the torch in my absence, this may not always be the case.
I believe that those embittered individuals who continue to spew bile and vitriol in the shadows are nearly as responsible for the state of this university as any member of the administration or State Board.
If you aren’t willing to speak out about these things, stop telling other people how they should solve your problems for you, and just come to grips with the fact that you are going to lay in the cut.
I will now reiterate a statement I made in my first editorial: nothing changes if nothing changes.
I believe we at the Bengal have made great strides toward change, and the fact that nearly all copies of our paper are being picked up on a weekly basis evidence this.
Now we need fuel for the fire. Now we need people to take a chance, to make a wager for a better tomorrow.
I share the sentiment of Vladimir Nabokov who famously stated, “My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music,” (I do enjoy some soft music however. Sorry Vlad!)
It also bears mentioning that no titanic change takes place overnight. If, up until now, you haven’t felt the urge to fight for change, there isn’t anything wrong with that, but a fundamental question needs to be answered by everyone involved with this university: is ISU the best it can be?
Perhaps the words of amateur historian and legendary science fiction author H.G. Wells are an apt reference at this point, (maybe we’ll get lucky and everyone’s problems will be solved by microbes) “If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.”
