Sitting in class last week, one of my classmates asked our professor the question every one of us has asked ourselves hundreds of times: "What is any of this theory good for?"

My professor explained to us why linguistic theory is useful in terms of understanding the world. During our half-hour discussion, we discussed language in terms of psychology, education and understanding disadvantaged groups both in Wisconsin and throughout the world. We came to a consensus that this university does not reach out enough to undergraduate students to offer opportunities to take their learning and apply it to Madison and the surrounding communities.

Throughout our discussion, nearly all of us were nodding our heads in agreement: The University of Wisconsin does not do nearly enough to promote the Wisconsin Idea.

We have all been told about the history of the Wisconsin Idea and its birth in 1903 by former UW President Charles Van Hise. His idea to bring UW into every home in Wisconsin has been upheld as the standard by which we all should be educated. A public university like UW should serve the public. This idea is one of many reasons that our university has the prestige of being a national and international leader in education.

UW has this reputation due to the fact that the visionaries of our university a century ago saw education as something more than for its own sake. Leaders such as John Bascom instilled in their students that their education should be shared with the entire state. Armed with the Wisconsin Idea upon graduation, students were supposed to lead our state and raise the quality of life for the average Wisconsinite by bringing their education into the daily lives of those who do not live on the isthmus.

The Wisconsin Idea may have been a dream even 104 years ago, but it was a philosophy by which those leaders educated their students. Today, however, the Wisconsin Idea seems to only be a vision of those after whom many of our campus buildings have been named.

Wisconsin has a myriad of problems facing it today. Why is the average Wisconsinite losing ground financially to Minnesotans? How will the increased interest in bio-diesel affect Wisconsin agriculture? How can we increase math test scores in Wisconsin middle schools?

While there are professors here who are working on these problems, it will be UW graduates who will have to solve these problems in Wisconsin communities. Considering the fact that at least 70 percent of us who graduate will stay in Wisconsin, it is critical that UW gives us the knowledge and skills to deal with the challenges that our generation will have to begin to face soon after we graduate.

Too often, I have had the discussion with my friends about how it seems that we are not learning anything useful to help us once we leave UW. While this is a discussion that college students have had for generations, it should never happen at an institution that prides itself in the Wisconsin Idea.

Of course, much of our learning happens outside of the classroom, and UW offers hundreds of opportunities for us to explore from student organizations, to part-time jobs working in a lab doing cutting-edge research, to volunteering in Madison schools and low-income neighborhoods.

When it comes to classroom learning from subject-matter experts, however, too often there are disconnects between what we learn and the Wisconsin Idea. While we do need theory to fully understand a problem Wisconsin faces, how often are we exposed to real-life Wisconsin issues for us to solve in the classroom? How often has a professor taken us in the Madison community in order for us to deal with a problem? How much grant money is there on campus to fund independent studies?

For some of these questions, we have to be proactive to find an adviser or the money to explore a local issue, and this is part of real life; for those of us job searching, employers are not exactly knocking down our doors with that perfect job offer. UW, however, can do more to prepare us in order to have an understanding of the world in which we live. Department chairs can do more to evaluate their departments to bring them in line with the Wisconsin Idea, and administrators on Bascom Hill can push the Capitol to fund an undergraduate education of which the founders of the Wisconsin Idea would be proud.

After all, those who are graduating next week will be the ones who will have to improve the lives for all of us in the great state of Wisconsin.

Jeff Carnes ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in linguistics.