The Activist Exists: Shaine Jackson Reflects

If you're reading this you are aware that the Activist exists. You're also probably a professor because let's be honest no one reads this paper. Really, no one knows this paper exists, and that’s partially your fault; if you’re student I'll address you later. I mean keep reading but you can kind of ignore this part or sympathize with me. As students and members of the Activist staff we're required to write stories. Our job is to give our student body and faculty information to not just help improve their campus life, but to also provides information that can improve your knowledge outside of the school curriculum. We definitely provided the latter of the two with our current staff, but informing the school body about the events happening in the school was definitely a fail. Why did we fail? Because we did have stories to write. Yes, we're journalist and we have to search for our stories, but when you search you ask questions. A common question that we might ask is "do you have any stories, topics, or upcoming events you think would benefit the students...” A common answer we received is, well nothing. Or we don't get an answer because we don't even get a response. That fail falls on you.

I don't see a point in attacking the Dean, because this is an opinion piece and I'm willing to stay ignorant of information I’m unaware of to make sure the larger point I want to get across actually gets across. The school does not support this program enough. This class isn't even a required course. It's an elective that literally can boost your skills and that’s it. I'm a literary arts major, and I wasn't even made aware of this class, and it's basically a more stripped down version of what I want my career to be. That's not okay at all.

Students, the next section is for you.

I'm a student. I know school is hectic trying to balance class, work, friends, and everything in between. I also know that as a student when you make a schedule you rarely get your classes to go back to back to back. That means you have free time to browse the web. Yeah, I get it, why read a bunch of unprofessional students when you can go to ESPN or CNN. Well because we're at your school and can report on your school. I don't know if you know this, but teachers can see when you access their Blackboard page. I've had multiple teachers address my class, and plea for some of us to even log in. How about you visit The Activist and get the information you're not getting from the Blackboard account you're not accessing. I guess you would have to know it exists, and that would require teachers who don't participate in reality to participate in this hypothetical.

All in all, the class itself is fine, and more than anything it's fun. We're all adults and this class treats you as adult as possible. You find your stories, you research your story, and you get your story done by the deadline. If you don't get your story done it's more of a let down to your classmates than your grade. With some minor fixes like advertising the class, making it a required course, and support, I don’t see why this couldn't be a site that's second nature to visit.