By Zack Hosseini
“To proceed with the planned concert would be to ignore the challenges of this moment and to miss an opportunity to demonstrate our most important values.”
— Richer(d) Freeland.
Values? Please.
By now you’ve probably all heard that Ludacris et. al will not be coming to our fair campus. A decree from on high is concerned about our image in the wake of the post-Super Bowl riots.
This university is run by PR scum. Let’s not beat around the bush. Come out from the denials and face it. We are strictly image-conscious and quite frankly the whole schtick has gotten old. I guess I could deal with it before, when there wasn’t a microscope on our school. Not laying that fact out there when the “world is watching” would be betraying a troubling truth that I have forced myself to forget.
How did we students end up getting the business end of this cat of nine tails? Read this and repeat: a NON-STUDENT drinks and then hops into his car and tries to hurriedly vacate the rowdy premises. Nearby another NON-STUDENT visiting his student brother sadly becomes the intersection of bad decision-making and fate when the distressed NON-STUDENT driver hits him. Every single student complaining about Springfest will admit that what happened on our campus was a violent tragedy that no university should ever have to deal with.
However, someone had to take the fall. It certainly wouldn’t be Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who will be in the national spotlight this summer when the Democratic National Convention comes to town. The police? Nah. Last time they took the heat was the Charles Stuart case. So who gets to take the fall? Us.
So, through the use of clever PR maneuvers (see below) we are Boston’s new whipping boy.
1. Richer(d) Freeland announces on the night of his Mardi Gras party (which might be the one event where he actually appears from his boardrooms as a real person and mingles with students) that Springfest is to be canceled. Just in case a media outlet decided to report on the story, he would appear to be a jovial paternal figure, talking to Student SoAndSo about her major. Slick PR move.
2. That Mardi Gras day happens to be the TUESDAY before spring break. So they’re banking on you going off to spring break, boozing yourself into oblivion and forgetting about that protruding knife in your back. Their assumption is your aloofness; that you just don’t care as long as you get your fix. Knowing your demographic is a must in any PR firm. (By the way Richer(d), I hope you and your bosom buddy VP of God Knows What Else He Could Fit In His Title Ed Klotzbier had a good time at Red Sox Spring Training watching the Husky baseball team take on the Sox in sunny Florida. Of course, I’m sure we’ll never see that expense report. But hey, when the news cameras come around, I know you’ll be found.)
3. “What they now see is terribly important for all of us” — Richer(d) Freeland. That’s what our version of Knute Rockney said in his open letter to students explaining why he took such drastic action. This is what concerns me most of all about this university. Always an eye on the outside, never keeping watch of what happens to those inside the castle.
See, we already gave Northeastern what they wanted: a statistic. We came. Most of us stayed. They have no other use for us now.
We’re washed up and unimportant, because you know what? If I were to leave because there’s some crap I won’t eat (thank you e.e. cummings), I wouldn’t show up on any reports. I’ve already been retained after sophomore year. All the Northeastern recruiters lay in wait like those sleazy seniors who pillage naive freshman girls. Once they have their way with them, they’re yesterday’s news.
If you’re reading this, understand that you are irrelevant in this university’s plans. You will matter again when you get that phone call from NU Calling 17 minutes after you walk off the stage with your college diploma and they’re looking for a donation. But hopefully, you won’t forget this.
Remember the way they’ve tried to solve our grievances. We’ve all had issues that were never truly resolved, but were instead made to disappear through the use of smoke and mirrors. Hey, they tried to make the financial aid office seem like less of a constant fiasco when they renovated it. But Richer(d), c’mon buddy, your caulk and walls can’t save you all the time.
We will hear from some of his puppets (some disguised as student “leaders”) that our voices matter in this decision. But we are caught in the wake of an ambitious man’s plans with no life jackets. What is this university’s most important class? The next one.
Values? Please.
— Zach Hosseini can be reached at [email protected].
