By Sarah Metcalf

In a year marked by unfortunate events, pulling together as a Northeastern community became extremely important. However, for many students searching for a little Husky pride, there has been no such atmosphere.

Students and administrators came together in afterHOURS Saturday at the Leadership Education Growth Opportunities (LEGO) conference, “Rebuilding the Community,” to discuss ways to strengthen the community bond some feel has been lacking in recent months.

Students had the opportunity to not only voice their concerns, but to brainstorm with peers and faculty about possible solutions to specific campus issues.

“I think students that went probably felt encouraged by the dialogue that got started,” said Associate Director for Leadership Programs John Silveria. “People realized that there aren’t any quick answers to this question ‘how are you going to rebuild the community?’ Making changes is a process.”

Student leaders were present to take part in the conversation, along with several faculty members frequently involved with student affairs.

“This is not something we’re going to do tomorrow, this is a long-standing process,” said Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Klotzbier. “We need to change the culture here at NU.”

It was made clear by all present, however, that solving many of Northeastern’s recent problems will take effort by both students and administration.

“It’s a joint responsibility from here for students and staff to move forward on the initiatives that came up,” Silveria said.

Silveria said over 100 “plausible ideas” were suggested during the course of the conference. Among those were a general wish for bigger programming, better advertising of the programming that already exists, more student group unity and a solid calendar for students to find out all of the activities that are taking place around campus at all times, possibly through a newsletter or Web site.

“It has to be something run by students, for students, because it can’t be judgmental or targeted at one specific group of students,” Silveria said. “What’s important to you might be very different from what’s important to the next student — it should be something people can actually search and draw their own conclusions.”

Klotzbier said better programming is the first step in creating traditions at NU and building on them, another common concern of students at the conference.

“It’s incumbent upon us to support the kind of programs you guys, the students, want to do,” he said.

Among the many ideas regarding campus and residence issues, students suggested better Residential Life activities, including competitive events between residence halls to build students’ community pride.

Students also expressed the need to reach out to a campus filled with “career-focused, individualistic” students – with much of the student body on co-op at any given time, and where 50 percent of students attending the university actually reside off-campus.

“It’s easy enough for us to know what’s going on with ResLife,” Klotzbier said. “The challenge is how do we get at the other 50 percent that are off-campus in ways that are effective?”

Student Government Assoc-iation President Michael Romano said eliminating the well-known “NU Shuffle” is necessary in order to make students feel less like a number.

“It definitely affects campus climate,” Romano said. “It’s an intangible, it’s part of the reason students don’t feel like they are part of a community.”

Positive results from the conference are already becoming visible, Silveria said. After sending out an e-mail Monday inviting students to become part of a Yahoo group regarding the topic, 35 people had already signed up by Tuesday.

“There’s a lot of people willing to be part of this process,” Silveria said. “Nothing that came up is unrealistic. A lot of it is in students’ power, but it comes down to the motivation to do it.”

The conference offered a forum for participants to freely communicate and bounce ideas off of one another.

“There are so many different perspectives on how to handle issues,” said Kayne Bordes, a freshman biology and French major. “People brought up ideas I didn’t even think about. In order for you to know what’s going on you have to have different perspectives.”

Silveria said LEGO and other student organizations will do all they can in the future to improve programming and advertising, but it all comes down to word-of-mouth between students.

“You can send all the e-mails and make all the calls you want, but students need to reach out to their peers — a lot of success in a program is creating a buzz behind it,” he said. “If you as an individual believe in it, you’ll tell your friends about it, and get them involved, and that’s a lot more valuable than any e-mail or advertising I can do.”

Although many students who attended the conference said they were pleased with the communication and dialogue that took place, it was apparent that many were also ready to stop discussing and start acting.

“It’s important to talk about community issues, and I’ve been to a lot of forums like this, but there’s a time to act,” said Meghan Loraditch, a freshman international affairs major. “We’ve talked about it, about what we can do now. It can’t be just talk though, now we have to do things and work to solve the problems we’re talking about.”