Since I have lost my identity as a normal human being and am currently known as “the semester conversion girl,” as one of my fellow peers shouted out in the student center recently, I figured why not share some personal information with you, the reader.
Plagued not only by a lost identity, but also by nightmares last week, sleep was infrequent, but much needed. On my third sleepless night, I had a dream, or maybe it was a nightmare, about President Richard Freeland.
In the dream, the Board of Trustees had fired him. Their reasoning was that Boston University’s Chancellor John Silber has also just gotten the boot from his post and Northeastern wanted to stay competitive with the school across town.
In the dream, Freeland was not bitter, but sullen, stating that he only wanted the best for NU and if it meant matching BU, blow for blow, then so be it. I helped him pack some of his boxes and told him he would be missed, by me especially.
Obviously this was a nightmare.
When I woke up, I asked myself what many people ask themselves, “What made me think of that?”
The banners donning Huntington Avenue.
Have you seen them? The next time you enter the Marino Center, look up, or if you are jogging away on a treadmill, look down and there you will see the NU banners, that look much like those that line Commonwealth Avenue, the stomping ground of the BU Terriers.
Starting in September, the similarities between BU and NU will grow. Namely the biggest similarity will be the academic calendar. The banners are another. In Freeland’s eyes, NU’s academic reputation parallels BU, but will U.S. News and World Reports feel the same way?
The two schools share the many Boston Beanpots, location, tower residence halls visible from afar, price tags on tuition, canines as mascots, perspective MBTA T stops bearing their name and soon, semesters.
Regardless of the similarities, large and small, superficial and profound, the students of each institution are the critical link to each school’s identity.
The students that stick it out at NU and are not alienated by semester conversion will be the ones to carry on future traditions at this university. Those with the heftiest responsibilities, and may not be aware of it, are the student leaders of today, those who may be counting down the days until commencement on June 14. But before they grace the FleetCenter in cap and gown, they must preserve the events that make NU — NU.
Conversations have already begun with the university for some student events, especially those sponsored by the Latin American Student Organization. LASO has grown in size and strength, as far as I’m concerned, in the past three years. The African American Institute has also begun to sort out when Unity Week will take place next year. The week-long event took place last week. This will be impossible next year because commencement is set for May 1. You can understand why this poses a problem.
Springfest and Winter Weekend might as well be one in the same under semesters because of the calendar swap. Smaller groups that are trying to get off the ground and become more visible may get swept under the rug if they are not pulled into the loop. As it stands now all of the “spring” events will be lumped into two weeks in April.
Two weeks?
If the underlying reason of converting to semesters is to enrich the academic experience for a student, then the conversion may pose the inverse for quality of life. The season of spring is ideal for Northeastern’s beautiful campus, but with such an early commencement and the caliber of New England’s winters, I’m just afraid that the students will suffer — that the student experience will suffer, and that students will lose their drive, their love for this campus. But more importantly, for the school.
If our NU traditions are thrown by the wayside, then we will become the BU of Huntington Avenue. In order for that to happen, we would of course first have to build a football field and then get rid of our football team. Freeland would also have to publicly denounce women and homosexuals, but that is another column all together.
The point to this week’s rant is this: the Northeastern student, whether a member of the class of ’04 or ’40 share the same character traits, they are hardworking, relentless and willing to stop at nothing to succeed.
And being who we are, don’t we deserve to have our traditions intact?
But, as we know all too well, a little thing we call the NU Shuffle, and I don’t mean the Web site, has a way of prolonging things from getting done.
This should not be one of those things to sit on NU’s backburner.
-Heather Allen can be reached at [email protected].
