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Editor provides advice, says thanks, final goodbye |
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Tuesday, 29 April 2008 |
For the fourth time in my life I am packing up everything I own and moving on to something completely new and different.
I am moving away from a handful of invaluable friendships and a world where opportunities fall from the sky if you can just take the time to look up for one second.
With four years of Boone at my back I hardly know where to begin.
I have debated my approach to this commentary for quite some time now –do I take the senior yearbook approach and just fill it with thank you’s and inside jokes? Something most of the 4,000 The Appalachian readers will never understand?
Probably not the best approach.
One of my initial thoughts for this final commentary included breaking down the insanely crazy year we just had.
 Cartoon by Jason Mills
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Beating Michigan, blogs irrationally attacking the student press and
student government, the ACLU unjustly accusing us of being censored by
the administration, winning a third straight national championship, the
alleged student gunman on campus, USAS staging a protest, Boone Saloon
burning down, abortion protests on Sanford Mall, or the ever present
noose incident.
My staff deserves an award just for making it through the year on this
paper while still managing to pass classes (not to mention having to
put up with me five days a week).
I could take this time to explain to you why I decided not to be a
communication major, but Millie Tolleson’s April 24 article seemed to
do a pretty good job of calling out that department.
Plus, I found a home in the interdisciplinary studies department, and
anyone who has walked the halls of the Living and Learning Center
understands the incredible things that take place within those walls.
Do I take a typical Clair Baxter approach and use this page to speak my
mind about all of the things at this university that I have come to
notice as unfair, unjust, or just plain ridiculous?
Like the university’s golden children that get everything they want.
You know, the ones that get paid to work graduation when it should
really just be in their club contract? The ones that thought they (more
than any other student on campus) deserved football tickets to the NC
State game, and tried to bypass the lottery system.
You know the ones that always win every homecoming category for
university funded organization’s due to the fact that the Student
Government Association, Appalachian Popular Programming Society and the
newspaper actually have to continue functioning because they can manage
both giving tours and having 8-hour lip sync practices and building
obscenely large floats?
This space could be used to call them out –and any other organization that prides itself on its exclusivity.
But, I’m not sure that’s the right approach. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
This space could be filled with thank you’s to Appalachian teachers
that have really changed my life and who have made a difference at this
university.
I should thank Dr. Harriette Buchanan, Jeff Goodman, Dr. Richard Carp, Kay Taylor, and Cinthia Pratt.
And could certainly use this space to thank Dr. William Hutchins who
had to spend two years of his career listening to my pitiful attempts
at speaking Arabic, and putting up with one of the most rambunctious
classes of rebel rousers I have ever encountered.
I could thank The Appalachian.
I could thank The Appalachian for teaching me Associate Press style,
for making me life long friends, for helping me to be a better leader,
a better decision maker, and a better writer.
I could thank The Appalachian for providing me with mentors, for giving
me the best hands on experience that I could ever receive, for
introducing me to my college sweetheart, for contributing to my
insomnia, and for introducing me to some of the most interesting people.
I could write this entire op ed piece on my feelings about The Magpie.
I could criticize the publication for the mistakes they made over the
last few months, or I could congratulate the students who cared enough
to create something new and try something extraordinarily difficult and
time consuming.
I could thank them for keeping me on my toes this year, and finally giving us a little bit of competition (but just a little).
Some of you might be thinking I should be using this space for more
important things. For fighting social injustice and making pointed
statements about what should or shouldn’t be.
But I have shown my support on this page before, and I believe it’s clear how I feel.
I do however have one more question.
A club can sponsor a potentially offensive “Genocide Awareness” group
to come fill the center of campus with billboards of unborn children
while our faculty members are being asked to remove books and posters
from their office walls for fear they may offend one student somewhere
down the road.
Is there a double standard here?
Do we believe in free speech or not?
I think as a university we need to do some self-reflection.
And we desperately need to figure out the truth. Not my side of the
story, not your side of the story, not the administration’s side of the
story...but the WHOLE story in full.
I could talk about my second-home in Boone...actually my first home...Plemmons Student Union.
One of the most beautiful buildings on campus and the space where I
spent an endless number of hours and met my true Appalachian family.
The Lee H. McCaskey Center for Student Involvement and Leadership
family which includes, most importantly, the first person I met at
Appalchian and my freshman year advisor Dr. Jim Street.
The Appalachian & Community Together family which includes everyone
from four years of Dance Marathon, four years of Alternative Spring
Break, the NC ACTS program and of course, Jenny Koehn.
Paul Ford, who we say good night to at least twice a week as he closes down the student union and we send our paper to press.
And of course to David Freeman and his endless advice to the publication.
This space might be most appropriately used to give tips and hints from a four-year student.
Hint: Even though the white cheese in Cascades Cafe has been labeled swiss for over three years it is actually American cheese.
Tip: Don’t for one second think that lathering the hallway of a
residence hall with soap and water from the bathrooms is a good idea.
It’s actually a fire hazard and will land you in judicial affairs.
Tip: Don’t ever forget to move your car from stadium lot on game day because you will find yourself car less and short $80.
Hint: There will ALWAYS be construction...get over it.
Hint: Triple check every piece of advising advice you ever get. Most
likely at some point in time you will be told you are a required to
take a class that is an elective, or you will somehow find yourself
looking toward graduation missing one class, or two credit hours.
Tip: Don’t miss class just because it is too cold outside. Save up
those excused absences and use them at the end of the semester when the
weather is perfect.
Those may be good tips, but most likely our readers have a pretty good idea about all of that.
Coming full circle I may just take the rest of this space for the senior yearbook thank you approach.
So if you don’t know me you are free to stop reading and move on to the ‘Our Perspective’ below.
To my family: Thank you.
Thank you for the emotional support, the financial support and the many trips to the grocery store on my visits home.
Thank you for not turning around and taking me home when I started
bawling on the way up 421 and told you I didn’t belong at Appalachian.
Thank you for believing in me.
To Forrest Gilliam: I will miss your friendship and having you right next door all the time.
To my roomates Whitney Baker, Ashley Banford and Kandace Davis you have
been a source of constant support and entertainment and I couldn’t have
asked for better.
To my friends, Jackie Sullivan, Brittney Mixon, Allison Davis, Cole
Setzer and the men of the seven gables I can’t imagine my college
career without you.
To my staff: You are an incredibly driven group of individuals. I have
put you through a lot this year and we have really made a difference.
I am proud of every one of you and am honored to say I worked at your side.
To my editorial board: I could not have made it out of this year alive without you.
Desk editors you made me so proud. You are all incredible journalists and phenomenal human beings.
Derek DeSha: you drove me nuts but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Consider this your final “one up”.
Jon LaFontaine: good luck next year. You have it in you. I have seen
the incredible work you can do and the respect your staff has for you.
You will be an incredible 75th Editor in chief of The Appalachian.
Millie Tolleson: we started here together and we end here together.
It’s been a long and crazy journey, and I just hope we can continue
parts of it together in the future.
Chris Zaluski: thank you for my sanity. You are responsible for so much
of my success here at Appalachian. You are a fantastic human being and
I will miss your friendship dearly.
To Appalachian State University: you are a very unique institution made up of incredibly interesting individuals.
It has been an honor to write about you for the past four years and it is a time in my life I will never forget.
I just hope if the football train stops rolling you remember how to stand on your own feet.
I suppose this place could be used for a lot of different things- I hope with this final commentary I did it justice.
Clair Baxter, a senior interdisciplinary studies major from Abqaiq, Saudia Arabia, is the Editor in chief.
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