Editorial   

Adelphi's population should be excited about the official start of a search campaign for a new University President.  A new leading figure means new ideas, new projects for the improvement of everybody's educational or professional experience here, new resources to fund these projects, a new face for the public (and our school surely needs a fresh image after the still lingering memory of the last long-term administration which did not end until 1996 despite the considerablegeneral dissatisfaction with it).

So, the announcement of the open forum with the first candidate the other week, which is to be followed by more, scheduled over the coming few months (because a final decision is not likely to be made before the middle of the summer), should have been warmly welcomed by the campus community, at least because of its role as a season opener. But for some reason there is a lack of excitement.  Not only were students almost exclusively absent from the forum (a sad fact, which, even more sadly, is often simply resigned to as a given: what can you do? Students are not going to show up.); there weren't even as many professors as one may have expected.

Unfortunately, this deficiency in concern for the affairs of the University spreads beyond the doors of such administrative  events to the affairs planned especially for our enrichment and enjoyment.  Even when our own peers organize an event, although it is assumed that they share and know our interests, the worry that  people are not going to show up is always present.

OK, we have to admit that it is nice to see that there are at least some events which attract so much attention from all, that there are more people who want to attend than the rooms can hold.  But we can't possibly rely only on visits from mega public figures to remind us that participating in on-campus events of any variety not only helps us fulfill the purpose of attending an institution of higher education (ideally  to develop one's mind, not simply to fill it or numb it with indifference), but also shows the self-image we hold of that same institution, both to the outside world, and to our own colleagues around campus.

Whether a student of the arts, a club for extra-curricular  activities, a professor giving a lecture, an office sponsoring a workshop, or an athlete  competing for the school's name  all want to see that their efforts are being recognized.  All want to have people join them, watch them, sympathize with their cause and make them feel understood and meaningful.

But very often as soon as one's own show is over, one forgets about the rest who hold the same fate.  Or even worse, many never abandon that my-last-class-ends-at-2pm-and-I'm-out-of-here look, which makes it completely aimless to even try inviting them to anything.  And what is even more discouraging is that these statements are equally valid of Professors and administrators, not only students. 

And they say that example is the best teaching.

While a new President will not solve this problem, or for that matter  any of the others plaguing the campus, simply because that is not what university presidents do, his or her very presence should act to unify the campus into a true community, whose members - all of us - feel, above all, that they belong to a respectable and honest institution, for which they are proud to show their support and affiliation.

But unless the members of Adelphi want to be forced to activism  at some unspecified point in the future when they find out that their President is, once again, not what they expected (because for some reason people seem to unite much more eagerly when disaster strikes, albeit a disaster that could have been prevented by earlier  active measures), they should start paying a lot of attention now.  Better yet, they should check those activities books and the campus announcements, and make sure they pencil in some event important to them in next month's pages of their planners.