With tax revenues for the
Even with a $3 billion shortfall already met, there might be an additional billion dollars that the state has to make up. For local communities, this will mean cutting to the bone where much spending has already been slashed. For UMass, this might mean the dreaded $1,500 fee increase will return.
Still, with this being the end of the semester and the beginning of a new one only a few months away, I feel as if there are more important issues that UMass must address before worrying how it can pay its own way ‘- particularly, the awkward silences that plague classrooms, dorms and elevators all around campus.
This problem has festered since I first arrived back in September 2006. But, now with my junior year coming to an end much earlier and quicker than I would like, I decided it was time to take a stand against this ritual of silence which permeates the campus. You all know what I mean and just about everyone is guilty of it ‘- myself included. But it’s time to stamp out this illness whose debilitating effects are all too familiar.
The first major problem with people afraid to talk to one another is, obviously, that it makes everything more awkward.
It is as if we are all back at freshman orientation and are all too nervous to make the first attempt at conversation. Whether it is in the few minutes right before class starts and the professor mercilessly begins to teach or on an elevator ride , what is worse than observing this unwritten rule of deafening silence?
I will always remember My Body, My Health discussions on Fridays because they were awkward to the excruciating extreme, to the point where no one would even answer the teaching assistant’s questions.
How about those entertaining elevator rides? My favorite awkward moment is when everyone is stuffed in nice and tight and someone only rides up one or two floors in the library. Every single person on the elevator wants to scream, ‘Walk, you lazy bum!’ But it is senseless to hope that such a moment will actually happen.
The second major problem is that some people’s adherence to this stupid custom hurts those who want to make conversation. Try having a conversation in a room with one or two other people while all 20 others are sitting in silence, staring straight ahead or pretending to read The Collegian for the 10th time that day. It is certainly feasible, but the fun is taken right out of it. You know everyone is listening. Everyone else knows you know they are listening. It is just uncomfortable.
It is even harder to flirt with someone. I have even given up on it because of the feeling that all the guys in the room are judging your every move. It is like being under a microscope ‘- people can follow along as either you crash and burn or attempt to ask for a number with an audience of 20 fellow students. Terrifying.
There you have it. Clearly the most important issue and one that pertains to all of us is this oath of silence most students at UMass seem to take especially serious. Perhaps over the summer, the UMass administration can implement measures to help make things less awkward.
Who knows, maybe we will come back to music in the elevators ‘- fixing them can come later. Rocking out to some smooth saxophone melodies instead of staring at the floor numbers as they slowly tick by will certainly brighten my day. Maybe freshmen can bring with them to class the silly ice-breaker routines they learn to perfect at both orientation and during the first few days on campus.
Talking to a speechwriter this summer, he told me that a column should present an issue and that you should offer a solution while destroying the opposition. There should be no opposition where this is concerned. UMass is faced with an epidemic of silence ‘- forget swine flu ‘- that cannot be accepted any longer.
Nick Milano is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
