You’ve gotta fight for your right to get an education

Originally published October 29, 2009.

We’ve spent months fighting over facets of the college experience, from the clout scandal to Illinois’s MAP grant funding to the DREAM Act. At the heart of all of these issues lies a single question: do we have a right to a college education?

We’ve spent months fighting over facets of the college experience, from the clout scandal to Illinois’s MAP grant funding to the DREAM Act. At the heart of all of these issues lies a single question: do we have a right to a college education?

When I use the word “right,” I mean a choice that everyone has access to, in which their individual merit is the only factor that determines their attendance at a particular university. Two of the greatest impediments to this, as we’ve seen over the course of the summer through this fall, are political influence and money.

Since the clout scandal broke months ago, apathetic onlookers seem to express the same complaint.

Whether in regard to people’s obsession with forcing trustees to take the blame or to the sense of futility that things could ever change, they respond with the point that many schools have clout lists.

While forcing a good chunk of the Board of Trustees to resign, including Joe White and Richard Herman, may relieve a little of our immediate frustration, the problem won’t be corrected until we demand that the state legislators involved pay the price for essentially starting everything.

If we truly believe in working toward fairness in higher education—that is, insisting that dedicated minds have a right to attend college based on that academic dedication alone—then we need to step up our response and set the example for other public institutions governed by unfair political influence.

The bigger obstacle (one further aggravated by state government in Illinois) is money, as we’ve seen in the recent fight to re-establish funding for Illinois’s MAP grants. Public response to the under-funding of the program over the summer finally pushed Governor Quinn to allot another $205 million for grants two weeks ago. As the state takes out a loan to pay for the expense, people are voicing their concerns about how we’ll manage to pay it back.

Anyone attending college in the last several years has likely noticed a continuous increase in tuition rates, brought on in part by legislative efforts to keep costs down for students. To compensate for flat-lining funding from other sources (in our case, state government), universities jack up their prices, increasing the need for grant and scholarship funding.

Ice that expensive cake with the skyrocketing cost of textbooks and you’ve got a dessert so pricey that many in even the upper middle-class have a hard time footing the bill, to say nothing of the impact it has on lower-income students’ college prospects.

It’s impossible not to recognize that race and ethnicity are tied into this battle against college cost. While certainly not all prospective lower-income students identify as racial or ethnic minorities or vice-versa, the exorbitant price of attending a university plays a serious role in determining the make-up of a college population. Increasing costs and dwindling financial aid resources make college a privilege, not a right.

In some circumstances, the U.S. outright denies people a chance to attend—people who, though technically undocumented, have lived here most of their lives.

This is the problem the DREAM Act aims to correct by providing conditional residency to those who qualify. But if it’s not one thing, it’s another: even if the legislation passes, these students would be ineligible for federal aid.

Greater social, historical, and cultural factors have established much of America’s financial landscape, and it would be naïve to say that making college truly affordable for all would be a simple solution to enact—or that it is a solution able to level out the inequalities created by those factors. But the issues we’ve faced as of late can and must be opportunities to make headway in the struggle to refocus the college experience from a discriminatory business to a truly higher, broader, and better education.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

The real world offers a break from college

Originally published October 22, 2009.

Introducing yourself as a senior in college usually garners one of two responses: “Are you having fun?” or “What are you doing after graduation?”

I’ve made the most of college and I have some vague ideas about where I’m headed, like most other seniors would tell you. But part of me feels like what I need to do after graduating is relax from making the most of everything. Perhaps entering Professional Land will help.

It sounds strange to say that the real world promises to be a relaxing place. As we do the customary last-minute scrabble for employment and internship positions, meeting with counselors at the Career Center for the first time since we got to college and trying to tell ourselves exactly what we want to do with the rest of our lives, the real world seems like the looming shadow of doom coming ever closer.

While I understand everything won’t be sunshine and ponies after undergrad, college is tougher than many give it credit for. No one expects you to do a two-floor beer bong at an office job or study for three exams the same week you have a major essay due.

Then again, no one gives you a free week-long vacation in March, either.

But seriously, while many employers certainly do expect you to get work done five days a week without huge summer and winter breaks, there’s something to be said for normalcy.

You walk into work at a set time every day, accomplish as much as you can during that time frame, and then leave it there when it’s time to clock out.

Unlike classes, your time commitment isn’t scattered over the course of your day, sometimes running from early morning into the evening with only awkward breaks in between.

While some employers definitely differ, most don’t ask that you come into work and take weekly if not daily assignments home with you to be done before your next shift. No one expects you to pull an all-nighter to accomplish designated tasks.

It’s certainly not to say that college instructors expect this kind of desperate action, but students get so caught up in “making the most” of being at school that we often forget important things: that coming to a university is about getting a particular kind of education, and that “making the most” of something should entail having fun, not being stressed.

At a university that boasts one of the largest networks of student organizations, this is especially true. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by all of the offerings at Quad Day and within the Champaign-Urbana community as far as your interests or personal goals. There are a wealth of opportunities to be had, and sometimes we push ourselves to participate in things that are supposed to be recreational without realizing how it will interact with our ability to do coursework.

Acting in that play and working part-time sounded great until you hit midterms and tech week at the same time.

Having money to do the things you like around town can help you make the most of your time and offset college costs. It might also give you great stuff to put on a resume.

But sometimes it’s another thing to throw on the “making the most of things” pile, especially if you work in some place like University Housing, where your home is your place of work. Some days, it just seems like your routine never ends.

Will I miss my undergrad days? Definitely. It’s a unique time in life.

But so are the experiences I’m headed for after leaving, after getting my footing in the real world.

I don’t think I’ll land some dream job that immediately puts me on the road to a magical easy life.

But I’m looking forward to getting back the pauses in life, the precious time when nothing happens, and nothing is expected.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Let the farmer’s market convince you to eat your vegetables

Originally published June 29, 2009.

Farmers’ markets boast a wealth of interesting sights and sounds for anyone willing to crawl out of bed by eight in the morning: one-man bands (a surprising number of which tend to include banjos), artfully-shaped bonsais, and lines a mile long waiting not for concert tickets or driver’s license renewal, but for fresh strawberries.

The conjured scent and phantom taste of those berries brings me to the most important aspect of a market comprised primarily, of course, of farmers. The produce from local farms is not only one of the best parts of summer and early autumn, but is also a flavorful epiphany (and celebration) regarding the “growing up” of our tastes.

I can remember countless people new to college who, having secured the freedom to choose their diet by living on campus, ate the same junky comfort food every day.

A la carte dining plans facilitate this much more than the buffet-style dining of UIUC, but it’s always possible to find something to satisfy the desire for something uninventive and unhealthy in dining halls.

Much of this comes from a desire for at least one aspect of the “college experience” to remain static. A hot, tasty meal goes a long way towards making a day or even a whole week in a new place more tolerable, even (or perhaps especially) when it’s bad for you.

In the meantime, either the hesitance to jump on the Try New Things bandwagon or the obliviousness to nutritional knowledge tends to keep vegetables at arm’s length for many students.

We come to campus with established dietary likes and dislikes and stick to them at all costs.

In my case, they took the form of an avowed hatred of broccoli and asparagus and to a lesser extent, bell peppers and tomatoes. I do know people who refuse to eat things they despise no matter how they’re prepared. But I mostly just couldn’t eat these banes of my taste buds’ existence on their own.

And yet, the produce offered at farmer’s markets looked incredibly appealing, perhaps even delicious. Seeing such beautiful, unique goods was completely different than the homogenous, bland “perfection” of the grocery store stuff, imported and out of season.

Of course, learning to like foods has as much to do with preparation as it does growing practices.

Veggies tend not to taste so great when they’ve been cooked to the consistency of mush in mass quantities, as is often the case in dining halls.

Not only does it completely change the taste, it also eliminates most of the nutritional contents that make eating vegetables necessary.

Eating lightly steamed broccoli was completely new for me. The plastic-bag flavor of the frozen variety and camouflage green color were nowhere to be found. The delicate tanginess of ripe local tomatoes replaced the watery smushiness of giant store-bought ones, as with red peppers. I even learned that in addition to tasting better, red bell peppers are actually better for you than their unripe green counterparts.

And, in an unexpected coup of my previous feelings about veggies, I went back for seconds of asparagus grilled briefly with lemon juice and black pepper.

For all of you out there who swear six ways to Sunday that you could never like spinach, radishes, or kohlrabi, do yourselves a favor. Do whatever it takes to get out of bed this Saturday and get to the Urbana farmer’s market.

Buy fresh, buy local, and don’t forget to enjoy the banjo music.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Tornado safety should be a gen-ed

Originally published June 22, 2009.

The thunderstorm in Champaign-Urbana on Friday was an impressive sight. Raindrops flew sideways, birds struggled against the wind in seeming slow motion, and the lightning was so bright that it looked like a transformer explosion (not the Optimus Prime kind). A lake developed on Springfield Avenue.

And of course, with all the blustery wind, local authorities issued a tornado warning for Champaign County.

Not that it did much to deter the hustle and bustle of determined Champaign residents around Campustown. Even in the torrential do15wnpour, people could be seen getting pelted by rain as they walked along the sidewalk and driving by at regular speeds despite low visibility.

As someone who spent a year as a first-floor RA and several months as one in rickety campus apartments at UIS, I’ve gotten very well-acquainted with tornado safety procedures over the last few years. Or maybe I should say as someone who lived in West Texas for 11 years, I know more about tornado protocol than just about anything else that was taught between third and seventh grade.

Knowing firsthand that tornadoes caused havoc in Springfield during March of 2006, I’m sure that all Illinois schoolchildren have also run tornado drills in their lifetimes. Since Chicago is the Windy City, I figured all Chicagoans maintained a deep and almost sacred understanding of the wind and its ways, passed down via oral tradition since ancient times. Apparently not.

I was making tea at a friend’s apartment when the tempest began. One of her roommates was pouring chocolate cake batter into pans. As the weather worsened, the discussion between the cake-baking roomie and another over what to do became increasingly frantic. The tornado warning sent the household into a panic, spurring a flurry of questions.

“Should we go to my friend’s house across the street?”

And most importantly, “What do we do with the cake?”

My friend and I, South and Central Illinoisans, struggled to cut through the dense atmosphere of concern by suggesting ten or fifty times that we needed to go down to the first floor and ask some of their neighbors if we could stay with them for the duration of the warning.

As we prepared to temporarily vacate, the panicking roommates donned waterproof jackets. Of all things, they also grabbed bike helmets to protect themselves from flying debris and mandated that everyone wear them as we evacuated. In a moment of irony, the plug-in radio was also collected.

I can only imagine the surprise of my friend’s first-floor neighbor, who opened his front door to find five people standing on his doorstep: two in rain jackets and bike helmets and two sheepishly holding their helmets behind their backs, a digital clock radio, and me with zero protective gear and nothing but my purse.

Their neighbor’s initial response to our request for shelter was, “There’s a tornado warning?”

Within the next five minutes, three more people from upstairs had joined our tornado party. I say party because all three of them made sure to bring a can of Keystone Light to protect them.

Listening to the hubbub in the apartment, I couldn’t help but think that on top of cleaning up the admissions process and scrapping the administration’s say-something, do-nothing attitude toward the vandalism of the artistic efforts of Native American House, the university could stand for an old-fashioned tornado drill, too.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Recent grads should consider options before getting hitched

Originally published June 1, 2009.

Last weekend, I attended my first wedding of the summer. Even before that, I’d already seen photos from the recent ceremony of an old UIS classmate. The college grad wedding season has arrived just in time to take advantage of the lovely weather (before the humidity ushered in by June and July will obliterate it until almost November).

Every day, I seem to hear news of someone my age getting hitched, and I can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable.

Maybe it’s the near-evangelism of the wedding ceremonies I’ve witnessed that puts me off. Maybe it’s the resounding proclamations of fidelity and finality. Maybe it’s just the perpetual lack of an open bar. Or maybe, it’s the feeling of life moving far too quickly that overwhelms me.

I notice engagements and marriages of my peers and in some cases, I’m happy for them. After all, these are their lives and their decisions to make. But I often can’t help but feel disappointed for one reason or another: X married someone incompatible whom nobody likes; Y, especially ambitious and intelligent, married and quit college; Z felt too old to remain single and settled for someone just to get the marriage thing done and out of the way.

Carrying over a relationship from high school to college is usually unsuccessful. College presents new opportunities to determine who you are, what you want from your life, and how to achieve those ends. You meet new friends, encounter new social situations, and develop new perspectives on your world. You’re not the same person you were when you graduated from high school, and that can irreparably change the dynamic of a relationship with your high school sweetheart.

In the same way, graduating from college is a leap into the unknown and the beginning of a search for the career, the lifestyle, and the ideologies that fit best with the person you’ve become—or want to become. It’s doubtful that most freshly graduated college students know everything about themselves, let alone the people they’ve decided to marry immediately following Commencement. Knowing someone throughout their college career doesn’t mean you’ll know them well even a year after graduation.

In order for there to be an “us,” there has to be a “you” and a “me.” By that I mean that a successful relationship needs fully-formed, well-developed adult individuals—people who know who they are and can support themselves independently. They can recognize and appreciate each others’ differences and retain them in the merger that is marriage.

For me, this means having non-mutual friendships, individual career goals, and some hobbies or interests that allow for personal “alone time.” It seems especially difficult to maintain an active pursuit of your own desires or even figure out what those desires are when you’re 22 and have to take your spouse’s needs into account.

And speaking of accounts, most graduates have little savings to their names when they have student loans to pay off and grad school waiting in the wings. The last expense anyone needs to incur is a wedding.

Relationships involve playing a lot of the “intuition game.”

Does this person feel right? Do I feel like we could be together forever? I certainly can’t tell you how to feel. But I might suggest that the game gets easier to play over time, as your intuition gets better. At the very least, I’d say you should postpone that big day until you can afford not to have a cash bar.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.