A few rebuttals to Afsha Bawany’s May 12 column, “Do the Shuffle.” First, www.nushuffle.com was not created by Craig Shames, rather he is an editorial contributor. The site was created by a few upper-class students who have had complaints with the university for years and are merely using satire to express their criticism.

Second, NU Shuffle has no political agenda. Therefore, we are not marketing ourselves as using a negativity model to increase school spirit. Take it for what it is; if something such as school spirit comes out of it, then so be it.

Last, it is columns like the one written by Bawany that leave the NU Shuffle staff’s blood boiling, as well as any other student who isn’t softer than a mozzarella stick. Todd Shaver states one must “hold on” and “be patient” about student apathy/school spirit, and Bawany states that it is a student’s “job” to go out on their own and create opportunities. Your “make the best of it” philosophy triggered an analogy.

Here’s what NU is like to a number of students: have you ever gone out on a Friday night with friends to a bar, and no one is in there? Do you want to go in and make the best of the empty dance floor and persistent bartenders, or would you rather go to a place that is packed with everyone screaming drunk? Rhetorical questions, eh? Let us just say you went into the place that is dead. You immediately want to leave, but the bouncers are like “Stay. It’ll get better. Be persistent.”

Yeah it might get better, but one, I don’t want to be a guinea pig, and two, this bar charges a $30,000 cover. You’d think a bar that charges such a cover would do all it can to make sure you have a good time, make sure you feel a sense of community and damn well make sure to publicize its events the best it can.

Until the money NU charges equals the value students receive, whether that be in the form of higher quality of education, exciting school spirit-building events and/or a more thorough and efficient customer service system, students will continue to have legitimate gripes and seek a place where their uninhibited voices can be heard.

If students want to laugh, have fun and even be negative about some things, let them. It’ll be better for their mental health, and probably the school’s health. If finally there was some way to tell it like it is or just get something off their chests, without tailoring it for university purposes. The more people speak their mind and are allowed to be natural, the better things usually become. And the more people tell us, like Bawany has, we as students have a “job” to do regarding school spirit and need to curb our thoughts, the worse things get. Do students really want another job?

The comments we receive most at the NU Shuffle are “great site,” “hilarious,” and “finally someone is saying something that students have wanted to say for years.”

So if you want to voice previously unspoken frustrations, send us an editorial or visit the “Shuffle Board” — our version of the message board; if you want a laugh, read the articles; if you want to read factual articles/editorials that don’t make their way to the desks of NU Public Relations Office, go to the Forum section of the NU Shuffle. If you are tired of articles more sugarcoated than knock-off brand frosted flakes, give NUshuffle.com a shot.

– Jared Stanley is a junior communications major.