® STAFF EDITORIAL
Students should remain civically engaged beyond the election season
HOW WE SEE IT
While we celebrate how the community has come together to spur civic
engagement on campus, this energy should not be contained to the fall.
The Elon community’s commit
ment to civic engagement was appar
ent when hundreds of students from
all across campus piled into Moseley
Student Center to watch the past two
presidential debates. Two weeks ago,
it was demonstrated by the students
who spent more than four hours call
ing community residents for the Elon
University Poll, whose work is quoted
by news organizations around the
nation. Civic engagement was there,
too, at the many opportunities for
discussion organized by the Kernodle
Center for Service Learning and Civic
Engagement, Elon Votes! and the
Council on Civic Engagement.
So far this fall, Elon students have
truly taken the term “civic engage
ment” and allowed it to manifest in
their experiences outside the class
room. But it’s important to make sure
civic engagement transcends the elec
tion season.
Elon defines civic engagement as,
“the process of learning about the
assets, needs and concerns of the
larger communities of which we are a
part and the willingness to collaborate
with others to help define and achieve
the common good.” By that definition,
civic engagement is more than just
your vote and attendance to debate
watch parties.
It could be engaging in service
work by volunteering at Allied
Churches of Alamance County,
remaining informed by reading the
local newspaper or helping organize
panel discussions at Elon to spur con
versation on community-based issues.
Some issues, like selecting the
leaders of our nation and state, are
contained to this fall. Others, such as
the fact that 15.7 percent of the total
population of Alamance County is
considered food insecure, are not.
While we celebrate how much civic
engagement spirit we’ve shown these
past few months, it’s important that we
carry this energy forward even after
the election season.
ENT 2017 MOVED T
- ufi
Traditions can change Under the Oaks or bust
Leena Dahal
Columnist
(SLeenaDalial
important.
But how about
For students who had to struggle to
get here or have struggled while here —
including first-generation students — the
graduation ceremony is more than just an
orchestrated event.
Traditions are guaranteed to be
given to you at the
end of your four
years.
forging a new It’s something
tradition that you and those who
allows more
..... incredibly hard for.
people in our u, the culmina-
community tion of more than
which includes four years of course-
our families — work,
to participate? its a product
of collective and
unapologetic tenac
ity from you and
those who have fought with you.
So on the day of your undergraduate
graduation, your invitation for family and
friends is more than just an expectation.
It’s an opportunity to allow those who
love you — especially those who may
have not had the opportunity to live that
experience — the gift of being a part of
your journey.
So student survey or no survey. Under
the Oaks or under the bare, blue North
Carolina skies, to me, and to many other
students, it really does not matter that
commencement has been moved to Scott
Plaza. It just matters that it happens none
theless.
I’m proud of the university for sup
porting the option that doesn’t put the
possibility of having students limit people
because of a ticket policy up for popular
vote.
Moving commencement to Scott
Plaza allows for more than 3,000 addi
tional guests — 3,000 more people who
don’t have to crowd into Alumni Gym or
somewhere else to watch it on a screen —
when the real thing is happening just a
few meters away.
Be it my father, the only member of my
immediate family who will travel more
than 40 hours to be in attendance, or the
Harwoods, who live down the road from
Elon and who have become my family in
the United States, every single person who
fills the chairs on my behalf are people
who have contributed largely to my abil
ity to walk across that stage. And I want
them to have a full view.
Traditions are important. But how
about forging a new tradition that allows
more people in our community to partic
ipate? What good is a tradition anyway
if it leaves out a significant number of
people?
Paige Pauroso
Columnist
@Paige_Pauroso
I remember when I first toured Elon
University. I walked through campus, the
North Carolina sunlight poking through
the giant oak trees, and I realized that I was
meant to be an Elon student. While Under
the Oaks, my tour
Elon hOS guide told me how
been having *6 first day of
commencement
, Sit here and receive
Under the Oaks ,,,,orn. And then,
since 1987. after four amazing,
That’s almost engaging years, you’ll
30 years. Sure, here one more time
traditions come receive an oak
j L i ■ sapling to represent
and go, but this
one needs to dent,
stay. This tradition was
one of the selling fac
tors for me to come to Elon, and it was the
best decision I have ever made.
I’m sure a lot of the graduating class feel
the same way as I do about this tradition.
When I heard the news that my grad
uation was being moved to in front of
Alamance, I wanted to cry. Elon has held
Commencement Under the Oaks since 1987.
That’s almost 30 years. And, sure, traditions
come and go, but this one needs to stay.
Tradition is what makes this beautiful
campus I’ve called home for the last three
years so incredibly special. Every graduation
Under the Oaks is when students end the
best four years of their lives right where
they began them. Haggard Avenue just
doesn’t have a special place in my heart.
And I assume this decision was partly
made because SGA and Elon didn’t want to
enforce a ticket policy on graduation. But
honestly, I’d be OK with that. I kind of think
it’s expected, since practically every other
college in the nation has a ticketed gradua
tion.
But most of all, I am so shocked that our
senior class officers made this decision on
their own without consulting the rest of the
class they are supposed to be representing. I
just think more opinions needed to be heard
on this one. And that goes for Elon senior
staff, too, who also helped make this deci
sion.
If a survey was sent out asking what
option the senior class preferred and the
class, as a whole, chose Alamance, I’d be OK
with it (albeit I’d still be majorly sad). But
that’s not what happened. The decision was
made for us without anyone else being asked.
I hope our senior class officers and Elon’s
senior staff reconsider the wishes of the rest
of the senior class and send out a survey
soon to help resolve this issue.
But if graduation remains in front of
Alamance, you know where to find me on
May 20 — sitting in a lawn chair taking in
my last moments as an Elon student. Under
the Oaks.