From the day we step onto this campus, we’re told that we’re special—that we represent the academic elite because we’re at Queen’s. We’re told we have the best grades, the best spirit and the best opportunities to have the best future. As a result, we come to believe that we’re entitled to nearly everything, simply as a result of being a Queen’s student. This sense of entitlement creates an environment in which we’re unwilling to work and unwilling to put energy into what we believe in and what we want to build and create. When I leave this campus in a few weeks, I’ll have many fond memories of my time spent at Queen’s, but I’ll also leave with a wish list of what I think we can do better.
My Graduation Wish List:
I wish Queen’s wasn’t known for its destructive and inebriated Homecoming street parties, but for the fact that after such a rowdy weekend students return to Aberdeen and collectively clean up their mess. I wish Queen’s students weren’t known for being apathetic and having a sense of entitlement, but for being engaged and motivated. I wish queen’s students hadn’t turned “the culture of whiteness” into a sarcastic joke but had sought to truly understand its meaning.
I wish students were not only capable of understanding Marxism, 18th-century English literature, and a supply/demand curve, but could also understand how to properly sort recyclable items.
I wish Queen’s was a place where people spent as much time going to speakers, workshops and rallies as they do standing in line for Players tickets, the Ale House and QMP. I wish students spent less money on charity balls and bake sales, more money at the farmer’s market, the Earth Centre and the Fair Trade Co-op. I wish people not only spent their money there, but knew these things existed and where they were located.
I wish our student government cared more about student debt and a student voice in University decision-making than students’ right to have a kegger. I wish members of our student government kept their promises and answered their e-mails.
I wish “sustainability” wasn’t perpetually used as the name of a conference or vague future goal, but something tangible, being created now, that you could point to on campus.
I wish the University was an institution of learning, and not an institution of power.
Time and time again, the University tells students it’s not a public space for students: it’s a private space for corporations to make money off of students. I wish Queen’s would put ethics over profits, and its students over its business partners. I wish Queen’s would emphasize democracy within governance.
I wish our administration would not only listen, but would recognize and act on student concerns. I wish that office hours with our principal were more about creating change than creating small talk.
I wish Queen’s had a sense of community. Not the Frosh-Week-chanting, Queen’s-jacket-wearing, Oil-Thigh-singing, “we’re-better-than-you” sense of community, but a community of students who care about the space we learn and live in, a community that seeks to improve that space and foster its development. There isn’t one thing, one change that will make Queen’s better: the list is endless. We need a change in perception, a change in priorities and a change in approaches to improve this university. Queen’s is full of unspoken rules, unofficial channels and private decision-making. We need more open, democratic spaces for students to voice their opinions, and we, as students, need to take advantage of those spaces and use them, and use them responsibly. The spaces that currently exist are devoid of true meaning and discussion. We debate the financial status of the QP and the Common Ground, but not why student services on a university campus should have to compete with multinational corporations in the first place. We complain that commerce students have improved access to health services, but don’t acknowledge the systemic problem of the existence of two-tier education systems that put price tags on learning and everything related to it.
We need to re-conceptualize how we see Queen’s as a community and not just a place to work, drink, sleep and eat. Students are not powerless. We could make things happen if we wanted to, and if we believed we could, and if we cared enough to try. Amanda Wilson is a fourth-year development studies and political studies student. She is a Canadian organizer for United Students Against Sweatshops, project co-ordinator for Queen’s Oxfam and a member of Queen’s University Against Killer Coke.
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