The valedictorian at my high school didn’t receive the most applause. At most races, the first place or second place runners don’t get the most applause. Even the first place paddlers at Muskoka River X, the longest single-day paddling race in the world didn’t get the most applause. In fact, it was the third place team who received the most applause. The next day, team Arowhon got a shout-out for being the most enthusiastic greeting committee. Can you guess how large their greeting committee was? Four people.
The lesson runs thick in the Muskoka River, but very thin here in Madison. Who’s going to be there standing and shouting at graduation? Who’s going to be there to cheer you on for entering the engineering competition, even when you don’t win? Especially when you don’t win.
According to Playboy Magazine last year, the University of Wisconsin is ranked No. 2 in the top 10 party school list. But partying is much different than cheering and celebrating. On that end, with the exclusion of sports, I feel confident in saying that we are terrible at celebrating other students’ success.
Many students on campus don’t have parents nearby to celebrate their successes. Many students that come here do so without any close friends. To them, it’s starting over. And to start over without anyone at the finish line waiting to cheer them on…that’s just upsetting.
Yet, that’s the status quo here. At a school with astounding national and international recognition, the little things go unnoticed. Think of the professors who put up with us semester after semester. Rarely do they get applause (never have I seen a TA get applause without a professor telling students to give them a hand.) Think of all the competitions and contests UW offers. Again, excluding sports, when was the last time you cheered another student on when they submitted an essay, entered an engineering contest or competed in some tournament? For a school that says it’s full of pride, damn do we fall short.
Paraphrasing a commenter on the Muskoka River X article, imagine an 18-year-old or your younger brother or sister or the kid who sits in the front of class. “Working hard every day at something they’re passionate about. Pushing themselves. Tiring themselves. And at the end, they don’t get a pay raise or a boring diploma. What they get is hundreds of people cheering their name. They get lifted onto the shoulders of their mentors. They get tears from their friends and looks of admiration from younger scholars.”
Camp Arowhon (the team who cheered on the third place winners of Muskoka River X) understood the necessity of celebrating other people’s success, not just their own. I pitch celebrating others’ success on campus, not by learning to deal with your own jealousy, but by proactively searching for others whom you can shine the spotlight on.
I don’t care for canoeing. I don’t care much for concrete (not that I’ve ever thought too hard about it). But, I would cheer on any member of the UW concrete canoe team. Perhaps you need to reconsider what #badgerpride means. Perhaps you need to worry less about who places first and worry more about those who don’t. Perhaps there’s no need for a hundred people with blow horns waiting at the finish line or an auditorium that amplifies noise to know who the real winners are.
