This letter is in response to "School of Business Dean looks to bring back free papers to campus" which ran Monday, September 14.
While I recognize that supplying The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The State is a costly endeavor for Student Government, the university should not support their elimination from campus. Students need constant access to current events; political science students, above all, should understand this. Many of the introductory classes compel us to read a newspaper and respond to political phenomena. Now we are left to depend on news agglomeration sites or pray desperately that the ten free articles per month permitted by The New York Times will be adequate.
I read recently that the Darla Moore School of Business took it on itself to provide newspapers for its students after Student Government dropped the ball. Consider this letter my plea to the rest of the university to follow suit. Student Government flagitiously divested us of our newspapers during the summer seemingly so that we, the students they represent, could not respond in a timely manner. In his letter denouncing The Daily Gamecock’s hypocritical response to the cancellation, David Leggett observed, “the decision went largely unnoticed by students … for so long.” We suffer as a result of this malfeasance, its latent effects now evident to the student body.
Professor Joel Collins, a prominent attorney in Columbia, once told me that it is necessary for students to join the big conversation. We can talk about celebrity gossip or chitchat about the weather. We should be learning about foreign and domestic affairs, analyzing the stock market and debating philosophy. We should be able to converse intelligently about literature and scientific discoveries and local news, if nothing else. We should be reading newspapers! Instead, our hands are filled with illuminated phones, our minds locked out from the big conversation, in a state of taciturnity.
Do not let this continue.
- Written by Michael Arin, third-year international studies and French student.