The Court Street Corner
Justin D. Meyer

"If I don't do what they said, then they think I didn't listen to them and ignored their advice." Sean D. Nelson

Many students who attend Stevens have an attitude of privilege and entitlement. They do not usually start this way-it is acquired it from the upperclassmen, parents, and their tuition bills. Students slowly begin to assume that everything they have to say is worthy of incorporation or action. Certainly their input is usually worthy of an audience and intelligent discussion, but due to various factors, only a small percentage of any group's ideas will be new, original, or creative. It is very difficult to come up with a new, original, or creative idea-this is why inspiration is such an important part of the intellectual development cycle.

In a small school such as this, individuals often feel their voice is louder than it may truly be. On the other hand, in schools our size and smaller, one person truly can make a difference. The close relationship students, administrators and professors develop and maintain here at Stevens is beneficial in many respects. At a professional level, however, some students lose view of the "line" between their student status and the full-time professionals who are pursuing their careers here at Stevens. At larger schools this closeness and level of interaction is not feasible. Despite the close proximity in which we all work and interact, some of the issues perceived relevant only to larger schools still exist in our environment.

Students regularly vocalize concerns (at least among themselves) about their space, resources, administrative decisions, et cetera. As mentioned in the last installment of this column, they need to do so more constructively and that constructive input needs a more structured reception. It is important to remember that many administrators agree with the students' positions and ideas, but not necessarily on the implementation or detail level.

Often, it is the case that there are mitigating factors. These factors include, but are not limited to, outside budget influences, emergency repairs, Hoboken/outside issues, higher priority items, alumni direction for donations, potential better solutions, et cetera. Many issues and projects discussed in the Stevens community within the past couple of years are (still) in the works if they have not already begun. Also, students need to consider the effective time frame of their perception. It may seem that if it does not happen within your four years, it is not happening, but you only see a snapshot of the overall picture. A prime example of this is the SAGE to ARAMARK transition, which took about 2 years to effect. An idea may seem original to you, but only because you do not posses a sense of history. (This begs the question, why has someone not put up a web page with all the ideas tried which did not work out? Then administrators would not have to re-explain things every few years.) Unfortunately this can-and has-been used against the students, too.

The biggest example of outside influences-of which I am aware-involves the Babbio Center. As reported in the Hudson Reporter on January 25, the Fund for a Better Waterfront (FBW) waged a PR campaign against Stevens (which is being fought, thankfully) because they were very concerned with the asbestos in the serpentine rock being excavated from the building site. Despite verification of no harmful air pollution, the misleading comments of FBW resulted in a project cost increase of about $1 million.

When you are attacked by some PITA group because they do not like what you are doing, legal or not, you get delayed … and this delay is sometimes all a group needs to achieve a victory (which is why some employ this tactic). When a project in which you have significant investment goes over budget due to things that you cannot control or are inflicted upon you, something else has to take the hit. Realizing that is the easy part. The hard part is deciding where and how to minimize the impact and the long-term effects of the budgetary hit.

Leaving our example, students sometimes feel they are not listened to because the administration does not use their input. Sometimes this may be true, other times it is not. The students, frankly, do not need to know everything going on in every decision being made. That is not to say, however, that more information or reasoning being passed from the administration to the students would not be helpful in either utilizing student input and creativity or explaining rationale. If the students were brought in on everything, they would be doing the administrators' jobs, not studying for a career in whatever their major is. When they are brought in, however, it should be near the beginning and for the duration, not at the end of the process.

Let us look at another obvious example, such as the "controversy" over graduation taking place in the 8th Street parking lot. That "final decision" spread like wildfire through the undergraduate student population. Many students were absolutely incensed (even I was a little concerned), and even up in arms, over the issue. Many students made their concerns known, but not always in a constructive manner, from my observations. From what is known, the people working on the issue were in the middle of exploring many potential options when the undergraduate population was infected with this ill-explained final decision. Check SITtv for the recording of the meeting/presentation-which addressed all the student concerns and suggestions I have heard. Seeing this magnitude of student interest and passion about an issue is great, but misguided in this case. Place fault or blame where you like, but I just wish we could have seen this energy and enthusiasm when trying to get Stevens students to register to vote in Hoboken so we could work towards our own district and councilman.

There are numerous other examples and counterexamples, to be sure, but these convey the essence sufficiently. I've seen both sides of the fence-heck I've been on either side at various times-and the grass isn't greener or smarter, it's a different color and has different problems.

An errata, of sorts: In the last Court Street Corner, we listed "Design a system for a campus-wide card access system" as a potential student/group project. We did not know that Mr. James Cunningham's new title is "ID Systems Administrator," and we were effectively trying to suggest his job away. In lieu of that project, we wish Mr. Cunningham some "student lackeys" to work on the implementation of details or aspects of the system which might otherwise not be feasible. Sorry, James.

Sean D. Nelson and Tom J. Raynor contributed to this column.