Opinion: Editorial
Failure to capitolize
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This past week, Capitol Neighborhoods, Inc. held a meeting to address safety concerns with the student body. Several high-level figures, including Captain Mary Schauf and University of Wisconsin Police Chief Susan Riseling, were among the dignitaries present. Yet despite the high standing of many of the event’s attendees, the most important demographic — students — was nowhere to be found.
The omission was inexplicable. Patsy Baynard, CNI’s program coordinator, pointed out that the organization had advertised in the periodical Isthmus, and it had further promoted its meeting of the minds by listing the meeting with other Union events. As it became increasingly apparent that CNI’s generous move to extend a tentative olive branch of inclusion had been met by the bared fangs of total indifference, consternation set in. “We’re kind of like the adults in Charlie Brown,” Riseling pointed out with an admirable sense of gallows humor as the ill-fated event slowly receded into oblivion.
While CNI’s herculean outreach efforts were indeed commendable, they may very well have left something to be desired. As any organization that has had any degree of contact with students could easily point out, no student ever looks at the Memorial Union’s event list — TITU in the vernacular — unless they have a destination at the Union in mind. CNI would be hard-pressed to find the student who casually scans the TITU list looking for the latest outreach from concerned organizations eager to put a more benevolent face on their objectives — especially when many students regard those objectives as absurdly draconian.
CNI must also recognize there are a variety of outlets in which to publicize their agenda. No e-mail was sent to the student body. The Isthmus, which publishes once every week, is an inadequate medium of outreach to campus, judging from the fact that not a single student was present at the meeting.
We encourage CNI to put a minimum of effort into engaging the student body in the future. Sticking to the mantra of “If you hold it, they will come,” is not only infeasible; it demonstrates a general lack of enthusiasm for genuine dialogue that has come to characterize the organization in the past couple of years.
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The only papers read on campus are the BH, the DC and the Onion. The fact that they think advertising in isthmus would reach students just shows how out of touch they are. Everybody knows the Isthmus is for older non-students living downtown.
What next? Are they going to throw a sock-hop to attract the kids and then warn us of the dangers of doing the Charleston and drinking root beer?
I work at the Union and if the event was posted on the TITU that’s about all they did. You would think that if the object was to get people to come to the event they would do all they could to advertise. Putting ads in ALL the newspapers and also posting signs around campus and a sign in the entrance of the Union.
CNI cannot hold an event and then blame students for not coming when they didn’t a horrible job of advertising the event. If you want students to attend an event you actually have to make a conscious effort to do so. Once again, the student body gets blamed for “not caring” when it’s not completely their fault.