In response to D'Angelo Taylor's transcript
Issue date: 10/28/09 Section: Opinion
D'Angelo - you have some great points. I agree that coming together, listening to and respecting each other are key.
I think more opportunities for positive interaction between students & the community (more than just town-hall meetings) would help. If we saw students volunteering, attending churches, participating in civic organizations, etc, more of the community would have a positive opinion.
Those who see students only when they're out of control (peeing in our yards, tossing trash on the ground, walking down the middle of the street between bars) or when they're complaining about how lousy the town is and how badly they mistreated, I think it is no surprise that the community responds negatively.
-Melissa
BINGO Melissa! You hit the nail on the head. That's what I've been saying for awhile. A lot of the time when the people living in the NW have interactions with students it is because of something negative. We don't often see students doing positive things. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, I know it does, but we don't see it as much as I'd like to. I really enjoy the college students that volunteer for the carnival at Lincoln School and my kids love it too and really enjoy it when WIU students come to the schools for assemblies or to read to students or whatever. We don't hear many students talking positively about Macomb (though I'm sure there are a great many that like it here and think positively about it for the most part), what we hear or read are the students who are constantly trashing it or just making rude or immature comments about it or the residents such as the ones you see pop up on article comments on this site quite frequently. Just like we have both said in our comments about how peer pressure can be used for positive things (discouraging students from attending out of control parties, binge drinking, etc) hearing more students saying positive things about the community and the residents and more mature and intelligent comments in the media would go a long way towards improving relations. Those students really need to find their voice and stand up and let us know they're out there because residents WANT to support the university, they WANT to be proud of the students that go here and their achievements and positive contributions and that's a heck of a lot easier to do when we see and hear positive, mature, and intelligent things from students a majority of the time.
-AJD (responding to Melissa)
I think more opportunities for positive interaction between students & the community (more than just town-hall meetings) would help. If we saw students volunteering, attending churches, participating in civic organizations, etc, more of the community would have a positive opinion.
Those who see students only when they're out of control (peeing in our yards, tossing trash on the ground, walking down the middle of the street between bars) or when they're complaining about how lousy the town is and how badly they mistreated, I think it is no surprise that the community responds negatively.
-Melissa
BINGO Melissa! You hit the nail on the head. That's what I've been saying for awhile. A lot of the time when the people living in the NW have interactions with students it is because of something negative. We don't often see students doing positive things. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, I know it does, but we don't see it as much as I'd like to. I really enjoy the college students that volunteer for the carnival at Lincoln School and my kids love it too and really enjoy it when WIU students come to the schools for assemblies or to read to students or whatever. We don't hear many students talking positively about Macomb (though I'm sure there are a great many that like it here and think positively about it for the most part), what we hear or read are the students who are constantly trashing it or just making rude or immature comments about it or the residents such as the ones you see pop up on article comments on this site quite frequently. Just like we have both said in our comments about how peer pressure can be used for positive things (discouraging students from attending out of control parties, binge drinking, etc) hearing more students saying positive things about the community and the residents and more mature and intelligent comments in the media would go a long way towards improving relations. Those students really need to find their voice and stand up and let us know they're out there because residents WANT to support the university, they WANT to be proud of the students that go here and their achievements and positive contributions and that's a heck of a lot easier to do when we see and hear positive, mature, and intelligent things from students a majority of the time.
-AJD (responding to Melissa)
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