How about a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T?
By: THE MONTAGE STAFF
One of us is attacked on campus. The rest of us wait five days for an official statement from the college. We were left to believe rumors and embellished news from mainstream media outlets. We were left in the dark.
We are nervous about our safety. We are questioning our decisions to attend STLCC-Meramec. Our leader resigns without an explanation. We feel abandoned.
Meramec had the reputation of a safe school with outstanding faculty. Many students made a commute out of their way to attend Meramec for that reasons. So what happens when an “isolated incident” occurs where one student decides to “withdrawal [another student] from life?” The college writes it off while the media plays it up.
We are Meramec. Without the students, it ceases to exist. How about a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T? Five days of silence brought chaos and heavy damage on the reputation of a typically safe, top-notch community college. We, the campus community, deserve to know if there is a security threat and the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act recognizes this as a right. Rebuilding the trust of students and faculty depends on the administration recognizing these rights.
We may be students; we may be learning, but we are smart enough to know that these things could have been dealt with better and the school is compromising its future by giving its spotless reputation priority over a real sense of security, which are the partially the products of trust and transparency.
Meramec is a place for higher education, understanding and the betterment of a community. It is not a place for petty politics nor the blame game. If decisions continue to be made based on a corporate model of control and fear, the students will be lost. We do not care whose fault it is nor is it necessary for anyone else to resign. We want what we came here for; expanded minds and changed lives.
Whatever prompted former President George Wasson to resign, losing the head of our institution is a step in the wrong direction. In this time of uncertainty we as a campus needed someone who could lead us through these disquieting days. Instead we are left in the dark. Without answers, our students, faculty and staff members are disrespected yet another time this academic year. These tendencies toward fear-based management, if left unresolved, will have a lasting effect on the campus, faculty, staff and, most importantly, the students of this institution.
Action must be taken in the right direction; resolving problems through constructive discussions, not taking short cuts to resolve the college’s problems, making good on promises made to the faculty and staff, working together as a college and not a corporation and most importantly standing beside STLCC students, not on their shoulders.
