If anybody expected the student body of this school to react to much of anything outside of the world forced on them through their classes or fed to them by their television sets, it would not be referred to as a suitcase college. Students either go home on weekends to get their laundry done or stay up in order to scam on that special someone they meet in a romantic alcoholic fog.

It’s hard to know if this campus is ever rocked by any moral outrage. That tremendous stand for the rights of students in 1986 did not seem to be anything until the $20,000 price tag was mentioned. What upset this campus was the $120,000 of the MLK monument, and only secondly its peculiar shape. Nothing seems to make a difference on this campus unless it has a sufficient number of zeros following it.

Is the way to the students’ social consciousness through their wallets? Not really, it’s just that numbers are easy to find and easier to exploit. Both blame and unnecessary effort are lost in numbers. Students will not march on Lowden Hall because of a recent increase of fees. Monetary action doesn’t affect many peoples’ thoughts or deeds. The buck can be passed too far up the administrative network. What moves this school? Not much. The fact is that the majority of the students in this campus find it hard to get worked up about anything outside of what affects their eventual graduation and move out into the job world. It’s not a hotbed of apathy. It’s a hotbed of self-centeredness and ambition.

College is traditionally seen as an opportunity to discover and form an opinion about the world in which one lives in. Northern Illinois University is not such a college. It provides one with an informative education and serves as a solid step toward future studies. But if you want a student body with any knowledge of its strength, you better transfer to a school along the lines U of Iowa if you aren’t one of the many that have already been there.

Mark Kaminiski

Senior

Political Science