Now that we have your attention, please keep reading.

Because The Oracle turned 125 this year, we’ve been looking back quite a bit at our own history as well as Hamline’s, and thinking about the future. Overall, it looks like the coming year will bring change to Hamline, and likely The Oracle as well.

Something that will not be a part of Hamline’s future is the White House. Although we already have an opinion column on this subject, the editorial staff feels the need to put in our own two cents worth. As Erin points out in her column, the White House, which most of us perhaps admire but rarely think about, will soon disappear. Surprisingly, there’s been absolutely no public reaction from the Hamline community on the impending doom of the university’s second oldest building, despite our coverage of the issue. This, we suppose, could be the expected sentiment regarding a building that has been completely ignored and neglected by those in power in the past few years. But, given the activist spirit of many Hamlinites, its surprising nobody has stepped forward.

Sure, we have the occasional protest, but only when there’s threat of an oppressive state constitutional amendment, which would affect everyone on campus beyond their college lives. Considering how much we all like to complain about everything (“for how much we pay to go here blah blah blah,”) nothing is being done. Rather, certain individuals are tirelessly planning events and seeking support, but are only able to attract a very small group due to apathy as well as the small size of our campus. Is it really apathy that prevents us from being more active?

This appears to be a recurring theme amongst the Hamline community. People seem to be disengaged and do not want to speak out except perhaps anonymously through Hamline Confessions. Is this a side effect of the digital age? Is it something specific to Hamline itself, or common to small campuses? Or are we all too busy and stressed with classes, activities and multiple jobs to keep up with our tuition payments to be more active in the community?

On the one hand, we can hardly blame anyone for their disengagement. Here at The Oracle, we’re too busy and stressed ourselves covering as many important issues as we can as student journalists. Or at least the issues we know about; too often we miss a story because we’re not omniscient and people don’t inform us. But then, we hope the public will take the stories we do tell and react as they may. However, there’s often no reaction, except perhaps from an administrator or faculty member who emails us to tell us we made a minor mistake. Students rarely give feedback to us about anything we print. Yet, we see people reading the paper at Starbucks and doing the crossword in Whimsy before class. Occasionally a tiny mistake or misunderstanding in our print edition can cause great contention, so we’d like to assume that people do pay attention to what we publish. (Hopefully people are actually reading this staff ed besides our adviser—Hi David!)

We know that the people here really do care about Hamline, or they wouldn’t still be here. Therefore, we like to think that everyone is just too busy with their lives to be more engaged. Some of us may either want or not want Hamline to build a sports court. But when we have 50 new emails in our inbox a day, it’s easy to miss the message about the survey asking for our opinion. Some of us want to keep the White House around, but campaigning for a beautiful neglected building just doesn’t fit into our schedules. We’d love to rally for human rights and saving the environment and all kinds of other awesome things. We simply don’t have the time. There are some superhumans among us who seem to be able to do everything but, for the most part, we’re left apathetic. The trustees might be on campus for a groundbreaking open forum, but shit, we’ve been up all night and have more homework due in a few hours…are we going? Hell no!

In the end, as your student independent newspaper, we are here to serve you—the students of Hamline. If you haven’t already, go check out our brand new website. Although the school year is coming to end, in the remaining weeks of May we will continue to publish articles on issues that we believe are important to this community: updates to the Clery Act, effects of the financial hold policies, updates to travel and catering policies—which affect all student orgs, study abroad, whether or not our campus will finally decide to ban tobacco, updated coverage of Provost Jensen’s initiatives, ongoing coverage of the adjunct unionization movement, a behind the scenes look at last spring’s HUSC election and more. PLEASE, comment on our articles with your opinions, share them on Facebook—take the chance to be engaged in your Hamline community during the short time that you’re here.