University needs participation, not spectacle
I got a letter published in my school’s newspaper, The Daily Targum. A bit of background: RUPA, the student-run programming association, recently hosted Jersey Shore’s Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi for two events on campus, which cost RUPA $32,000. It was very popular, with 2,000 students attending two sold-out shows. A controversy was ignited, however, because the school (through a different organization) will be paying Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison $30,000 to speak at graduation this year. One student wrote a column calling for the abolishment of RUPA, and many others called its judgment into question. News outlets around the country have picked up the story, and many people are seizing it as an opportunity to confirm their worst stereotypes about New Jersey. Many articles and letters were written about it in the Targum, but I believe most of them missed the point about the controversy.
Following the controversy surrounding Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi’s visit to the University, a group of students have undertaken a project to bring Bruce Springsteen to campus. The leader of this effort gave his reasoning in Thursday’s brief in The Daily Targum titled “Facebook group hopes to draw Springsteen to campus”: “[Our] image is tarnished, and bringing someone like Bruce here will help people refresh their thoughts about Rutgers.” While I am a longtime fan of Springsteen’s music, this effort is completely misplaced. Replacing one N.J. celebrity with another misses the point entirely. The University should not judge the strength of its reputation on the names of the celebrities it can bring to campus. The effort to improve the school by bringing Springsteen trivializes the lessons we can learn from the controversy about Snooki into a shallow argument about which celebrities are “better” for the school.
…I think the divisiveness of the Snooki controversy points to a larger issue, one that calls into question the structure of RUPA. Many students expressed the idea that they had little say in this decision about how their campus fees were spent. According to Monday’s brief in The Daily Targum titled “RUPA says 2,000 students asked for Snooki appearance”: “Before selecting a performer, RUPA members brainstorm ideas, analyze trends in campus programming and gauge student input while maintaining an annual programming budget.” This resembles the work of a marketing department, not an organization that should be accountable to the students who pay its fees. Such an arrangement reduces most students to the role of consumers of pre-selected events. It’s unsurprising, then, that many students feel the work of RUPA does not reflect their interests, even if events like Snooki’s appearance are very well attended. RUPA is playing for popularity, not participation.
If we want the University to have an interesting culture, then we should strive to build arrangements that foster student participation beyond surveys and websites. Rather than trying to see which media figures do best in polls of student preferences, we should work toward a culture in which students work democratically to create art and events that genuinely reflect student life at the University.
Unfortunately, for the sake of topicality (and length), I couldn’t go after the real spectacle at Rutgers: the football program. For the same reasons, I couldn’t quote Guy Debord, either. But nevertheless, I think my comments apply to many colleges. The more a college does to market itself as ‘hip’ to prospective students through spectacles and similar events, the more it does to undermine genuine student-created culture, ultimately making the college a far less interesting place to be.
This blog has been retired.
