12/06/05
By Justin Norris,
Senior Staff Writer
Last month, a panel of students addressed the issue of athletics and its relationship to academics on this campus. It seems the unspoken myths and assumptions about athletics and academics had been spoken.
There seems to be a bigger picture here about how we establish identity on this campus for the better and the worse. There is a belief on campus that there are two kinds of students: those who participate in athletics and everyone else who are mainly identified by their major, if nothing else.
The primary identity of those who participate in athletics, we assume, is their sport and their relationship to their team members. However, we fail to consider that students on this campus, and others like it, shape their identities on a whole synthesis of values, convictions, political preference, sexual character, social and economic outlook, and personality.
Our beliefs about other students, particularly those who we perceive are not like us, are based on the assumption that their primary identity is constructed by their proficient ability and predominant interest in something, whether it be sports, journalism, politics, or music. With it comes a preconceived set of values, beliefs, and priorities which hold no merit and change our perception of reality to believe that we cannot relate in this peer culture to our peers.
With the utmost concern, we need to change our language. Using labels such as athletic students or music students, for example only demur our relationships to other students; this does not mean that we have to all be friends and get along, but there is a greater sense of civility and understanding for all students in our college campuses.
These labels make us believe that we are what people say we are, and fracture the college community stalling the great spirit that was once Seton Hill. It’s the looks that people give us and the unspoken standards and codes of our peer culture that decide who we can sit with in the dining hall, who we can relate to in the residence halls, and who we can turn to for help.
Nonetheless, I say that we must find a unifying identity as a campus and break our peers’ expectations of who we are and how we behave.
We are students, after all, regardless if the adjectives athletic, music, biology, or law precede them.
After all, we all gripe about the same things. There’s the food, parking, residence life, classes, and the drama that afflicts us day-to-day. Our identity is something we should cherish, and our friends, people we should treasure!
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