Homecoming weekend is an especially lively time around Ohio State. After a long week with a lot of cool events students participated in, the weekend kicked off with the Homecoming Parade followed by the Homecoming Game.
Despite the rain, the parade this year was awesome. It was very well planned and executed. And of course, since we beat Minnesota 38-7, the game wasn’t too shabby either.
On top of all that, or perhaps because of all that, a lot of students had their parents, family and friends visiting them that week. One pattern that I kept noticing was just how proud students were of Ohio State and its gorgeous campus.
Walking around this weekend, I kept hearing students tell their parents, “Wait ‘till I show you the Oval!” or “You’ve got to see the new library!”
There’s no denying it. Ohio State has an amazing campus that we should all be extremely proud of. We have beautiful dorms all around the campus, from the west-campus towers overlooking the river to the north and south residence halls.
This is great for everyone living in the dorms on campus. It’s taken care of, it’s very clean, and we’re extremely proud of it. But for all the students living off campus, it’s a different world.
After parents experience the open clean spaces on the actual campus, they explore off-campus with all its potholes, trash, and discarded beer cans. I don’t know about you, but as excited as I am to show my parents and friends the campus, I am almost embarrassed to take them off campus.
My question is, when we have such a beautiful campus, why do we have to treat our off campus like this? I realize that off campus areas are usually like that because of a lot of factors. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t care about that. We’re Ohio State and we can do a lot better than this.
There are some few places off campus that are taken care of and cleaned, and I applaud those residents for stepping up like that. However, there’s clearly more work to do.
We have off campus cleaning activities every once in a while and those really do so much.
But, in order for us to replicate the environment that exists on the campus, we have to each be involved. No one club, fraternity, or sorority is responsible for maintaining off campus. That would be ludicrous
As cliche as it may sound, I truly believe that if each one of us pitched in and made sure that they themselves take care of the mess instead of just adding to it, we can all some day get there. Some say that might be impossible.
I would like to not only believe that it’s extremely possible, but that one day when I am walking around during Homecoming Week, I hear students tell their parents, “You’ve got to see off campus!”
