Opinion > May 1, 2008

By Bryan Davis Keith | Old Gold & Black columnist

I, like all of my fellow seniors, have been deluged in the past weeks with requests from the student class campaign, asking for donations to the school. We’ve all seen the flyers for free beer at Freddie B’s and for tours of the infamous tunnels. We’ve all been told that we need to do our part and give back to the university that has given us so much.

Has Wake Forest given me a lot? It certainly has, and I am thankful for it. But the university I find myself standing in today is not the university I chose to attend even four years ago. For all of its academic merits and wonderful staff, this university has exhibited a direction and a mentality during my time here, and especially recently, that genuinely concerns me. And for that reason, they’re not getting a donation out of me anytime soon.

I find the direction this school is exhibiting, or perhaps the lack thereof, to be extremely distressing. The university maintains itself as a liberal arts institution, yet the divisional system has been largely undercut in the last few years. While many may celebrate not having to take a religion course under the new divisional structure, I for one having undergone the rigorous curriculum can speak volumes for its educational and developmental value.

Our dining facilities, our dorms and our classrooms are all overcrowded as it is, yet continued expansion of incoming classes is the plan. The scope of this expansion is not clear. The student trustee reported before the SG legislature that expansion would take place at 80 students per year over the next four years and then be capped. Two weeks later the OGB reported that President Hatch’s state of the university address planned for growth of 500 students over five years. Confused? So am I. The continued plan and focus on expansion of the student body concerns me on two fronts. First, the unique community feel that the university prides itself on can not and will not remain if growth continues. More concerning to me is the lack of communication exhibited by the administration regarding this matter. Expanding the size of a school such as this university that recruits based on tremendous pride in its community environment is a major issue, and having two stories being floated in two weeks as to the nature of expansion is unacceptable. And this isn’t the only recent example of the university leaving its community members in the dark.

Students and staff last week were notified of their invitation to attend a public unveiling of the new university logo, an embarrassing piece of art that forgot the “F” in the WF and looks like a cross between the West Virginia Mountaineers and a Volkswagon hood ornament. A fellow student of mine took one look at it and twitched. This invite was not to offer input on the logo or what should go into it, but to bask in its glory. If the response of OGB readers to the new logo was any indication, the Visual Identity Project was completely out of touch with the university community in doing its work.

Students and staff were surprised to see the flyer posting column suddenly pop up on the Mag Quad. Why did this trial program come to be?

There certainly wasn’t a student outcry about it. And why is it there? Is the school concerned that flyers are making the campus look trashy? Has the school identified a need for more student posting space? Does the school want to look like UNC? Truth is, the university community at large hasn’t been told why it’s there. Once again, no communication.

Students and staff were utterly shocked when confronted with the news regarding the eviction of faculty and staff from Faculty Apartments. It took residents and staff screaming foul for the officials responsible to make public the rationale for the decision, and even then it was conveniently omitted that the residents of the apartments were notified not in person, but by having notices shoved under their doors while they were all gone at required staff meetings.

Perhaps most distressing of the university’s refusal to communicate or discuss with its community members came to my attention today. While at my work-study job, a fellow student of mine expressed disappointment that he couldn’t pick up his commencement tickets the Sunday prior to commencement and decided to call the Commencement Office to ask why such wasn’t allowed. The student, when presented with no explanation for the lack of a Sunday pick-up, offered to assist in finding the staff and resources necessary to allow students to pick up tickets on Sunday. The office’s response? They got huffy and hung up on the student.

This mentality of hanging up the phone when questioned has unfortunately been the seeming norm rather than the exception during my four years here. It’s a distressing, disappointing and most importantly disrespectful emerging theme at the university. There are a lot of administrators that don’t seem to give a damn what its community members are saying.

And until they start giving a damn, they’re not getting a dime out of me.

Bryan Davis Keith is a senior political science major from Southern Shores, N.C.