COLUMN: Know civic responsibilities that come with citzenship
So, the other day I got to reading the Student Code. I know that’s a little weird, and to any potential mate, I mean date, out there I apologize. Please look past my slight strangeness.
As I perused the document though, the part that caught my attention was that we as students apparently have a few rights out there unknown to me and I’m sure most anyone else.
As any good student would, I tried to work the whole Code thing to my advantage. I rushed to invoke any right that I felt had been even minimally violated. The right I chose on that occasion was Right C, which says a student has:
“The right to inquire, including specifically the right to engage in reasonable academic discussion and dissent within the framework of course material.”
So, I took my rub up with my professor, complaining that he wasn’t listening to my opinion . . . blah, blah, blah. In retrospect, I think maybe I was just upset over a bad grade or something. That seems to be how it usually is. Wouldn’t it be great if, as students, we could see past the grades and just seek learning as an end in itself?
But as I invoked “Right C” to my professor, we spoke about something that I hadn’t really considered. Apparently, just before the Code lists our student rights, there’s a section, even less read, entitled “Student Responsibilities.”
I guess they expect us to give a little something too. Hmm . . . Good idea!
Maybe that’s the trouble with society these days. In a culture that increasingly values what we get, it becomes even less expected that we give.
But where great powers exist so should great responsibility. It almost sounds like a good “Spiderman” movie or something.
I am thrilled by the recent surge in support of morality in the country these days. No, we don’t have to stand for another Janet Jackson episode in this year’s Super Bowl. Our voices, when united, are strong and carry a good deal of muscle.
And yes, it’s OK that our president displays his moral backbone unabashedly. Though we should never infringe on the freedom of religion of another, that doesn’t mean we have to apologize for our own beliefs. In fact, in this past November’s election, moral issues more than anything else shaped peoples’ decision.
But, at the same time we push forward good morality, we must encourage and demand good citizenship.
In a legal system that continues to recognize new rights or expand existing ones, we must focus on increasing our own civic responsibility even more by being more honest, more responsible and better informed.
Too often our votes (if we vote at all) are uninformed, or based simply on the glib of a 30-second television spot.
Our voice can be wasted in ignorance. Who even takes the time to read the newspaper these days?
“The per capita circulation of newspapers in the U.S. in the last 30 years has declined from 300 to 190 per 1,000 population. In the four years ended in 2002 the percent of those ages 25 to 34 who have read a newspaper during the past week (either in hand or on the Internet) fell by almost 10 percentage points” (U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1989 [109th ed.], table no. 901; and Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003 [123rd ed.], table no. 1127).
Another study released on Monday by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation students reported that students are indifferent about the Constitution, in particular the First Amendment. Three in four students said they took the First Amendment for granted or didn’t really know how they felt about it.
A lot of fat good our freedoms are if we don’t know them or don’t care that we have them. A lot of good a free press is if we don’t even read it.
So tonight, skip that rerun of “Seinfield” you’ve seen 10 times, and pick up a newspaper. Maybe we’ll all learn a thing or two.
Jon Cox is a junior majoring in print journalism. Comments can be sent to jcox@cc.usu.edu.