Chris Banyas
Editor-in-Chief
Sometimes common sense just isn’t that common.
Take, for instance, the wisdom of the man whose name will forever be linked with the phrase “Common Sense,” Thomas Paine.
“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
I’ll riff on MC Paine’s fat beat by taking it a step further and tying it into your university: just because people aren’t rioting in the streets does not mean that there are not problems.
The sickness of this world is destroying all the dreams/The fools are kings, tearing apart the soul/The race for complication, communicate reaction/The lack of heart of men, I grow distant from the core.
Take for example something we looked into a while back: the ongoing construction taking place across the multitude of floors comprising Turner Hall.
It sure seems to me to be common sense that students living within those confines would become instantly sick with the ongoing construction, and whether any official office of ISU receives complaints or not, living in a construction zone sucks.
This is an objective fact.
No one has ever wished to live in a domicile under eternal remodel, under a constant barrage of workers moving in and out like the ebb and flow of the tide, of a never-ending aural assault of power tools and the sounds of deconstruction.
I would put forward a proposition: whoever is in charge of this continuing construction should be required to have a construction crew in their own home for as long as there is one present within Turner Hall.
Let’s see how fast the construction goes after that.
In my time at Idaho State University I have become severely aware of one explicit truth: ISU does a lot of things right, but the thing that it does the best is being the worst at something.
That something is transparency.
Whether this comes in the form of a proposed presidential residence facility, the planning and construction of a new medical school, the selection of a new editor for the student newspaper, or any number of construction projects that take place on any given week, the truth of the matter is that ISU succeeds so well at maintaining radio silence.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve discovered something huge at ISU by way of an email explaining, “THIS IS HAPPENING,” or “THIS HAPPENED,” rather than “THIS IS BEING CONSIDERED. WE WOULD LIKE YOUR INPUT.”
It is my opinion that this pattern of behavior is unacceptable, inexcusable and exhibits a general abuse of power by those at the top of the ISU food chain, i.e. the administration.
Here again we have yet another problem that will continue unchanged until people become aware of it and decide to speak out against it.
That is perhaps the rub in the situation: as students of a public university, we have allowed this to continue.
To jump back into the common sense side of things, we recently looked into another issue on campus, namely the horribly misaligned street lines in the newly remodeled MLK Way section of campus.
The response to concerns raised about the danger of these lines was as follows: “we haven’t heard of any accidents caused by them.”
It must be addressed in this situation that ISU is not primarily responsible for the streets and any irregularities contained thereupon. ISU should, however, take action immediately to rectify any dangerous situation, regardless of who might be legally responsible.
This infuriates me, but what enrages me even more than this is the attitude of apathy toward something that is clearly a problem not being a problem until someone is killed as a result of that problem.
Again, I find this to be inexcusable.
Essentially what is happening is those in power to do something about these problems are effectively ostriches, and anytime they get wind of a situation that could lead to a possible problem, they plunge their heads into the sand.
The other side of this argument is, of course, to be had with the ignorance of the student body itself, as the onus of this issue cannot be solely leveled at Vailas, Fletcher, or anyone else in the Tolkienesque tower looming large, casting a shadow over the campus entire.
“Ignorance is mere privation by which nothing can be produced: it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction: and, without knowing why, we always rejoice when we learn, and grieve when we forget.”
Clearly the man knew far more than how to compile a dictionary.
What has manifested itself is a machine comprised of two different colored gears, blue for students, and yellow for administration.
The ideal functioning of this machine would appear to the unbiased observer as green, as the teeth of the gears mesh, and the collaborative force exhibited perpetually blends the two colors.
But this is unfortunately not the way of the world.
Many of these gears do not function at all as they have teeth worn to nubs, or broken off entirely, causing the machine to lurch, sputter and generally not work.
How does one fix a machine that one finds oneself inside of?
The issue is less a matter of examining individual teeth, gears or anything else, and more about taking a holistic approach, an approach which diagnoses problems within the whole unit and proceeds to address said problems one at a time until the fluidity of motion is regained.
The enemy of progress is the acknowledged voice which pipes up with things like, “we’ll deal with this later,” or “let’s just go ahead.”
Again, no compromise is possible if both gears insist on operating independently, ignorant of the others existence and necessary place within the broader context.
