Apathetic attitude unavoidable at Rice

Think of one word to describe every undergraduate on this campus. Finished? Already?

My first choice was “LovesFreeChipotle,” but you probably thought of something equally creative like “ugly,” “drunk,” “smart” or something with fewer than two syllables. But I bet that if you tallied all the words Rice students might use to describe themselves, the A-word would be at the top of the list.

Apathetic.

It rolls off the tongue. The word “apathy” is Rice’s colloquial hacky-sack, kicked around between students to describe the underwhelming amount of general concern for the big issues. You probably have an involved suitemate who is constantly bemoaning the fact that “no one on this campus cares” while plastering your door and littering the ground with awareness fliers promoting some tasty endangered animal or global warming or whatever it is people care about right now. Apathy is about as synonymous with Rice culture as going to Willy’s Pub on Thursday nights and re-hashing the “good old days when Malcolm Gillis was President” even though you were not actually around for that.

But why does Rice get the bad rap when it comes to involvement? For one, unrealistic expectations play a pretty big role. Rice has 3,000 students all buried up to their sternocleidomastoid in papers and problem sets. Do you honestly think we have the time to be the next militant liberal revolutionaries? And even if students were to find the time to demonstrate and demonize and denounce, you would still have to consider that our population puts us at a comparative disadvantage. Large state universities — which actually get press when their students throw anti-war protests or burn paper money in support of the gold standard — have huge, diverse pools of feeble-minded hippies, Paultards, vegetarians, young Republicans and gun fanatics ready to raise a ruckus. We have about three of each here at Rice. It takes more than just brains to get a campus involved: It takes momentum.

Rice’s size disadvantage aside, we live in an age that legitimizes being lazy by using something called the Internet. Sites such as MoveOn.org have petitions to end the War in Iraq, online message boards are aflame with armchair experts and chickenhawks ready to argue their contrived beliefs, and I think you can even burn effigies of Dick Cheney online. But how can you make a difference when you are just another anonymous face in the blogosphere? Here is the sad fact: Rice activism and involvement begins and ends with the “Join Group” link next to your favorite cause on Facebook and it changes nothing. How many students are in some sort of Stop Ashby High Rise group? More than the entire population of metro Houston? With all apologies to those who associate Facebook group size with overall support, that is ridiculous.

Personally, I would be willing to deal with an inbox full of hate mail in exchange for high-rise apartments, millions of dollars and the knowledge that my family was financially set for life. And I think you would, too. But that is not the point. The Internet should be an avenue to organize a real display of protest and concern, not a place where lazy nerds spend their free time starting arguments. And having a link on your MySpace profile to some worthwhile cause is not the same as promoting that cause on the streets of downtown Houston. I do not believe Rice students are necessarily apathetic when it comes to the big issues. We are smart and generally informed and we all care to some degree. Rice apathy is nothing more than the reality of our time and place — a small school with busy students.

And that is not all bad, either. Rice’s size and connectivity guarantee that the right kind of promotion can get the entire campus involved, with the North-South energy competition serving as a great example. Awareness was raised, an impact was made, and all it required was that students get in the habit of turning off lights when they leave a room. Want to apply that same formula to recycling awareness? See which colleges can build the biggest beer can pyramid. Rice students like to be creative, too. Once clubs and organizations start branching out from the “free pizza and obscure guest speaker” mentality, attendance will pick up.

With a little luck, Rice students might lose the “apathetic” moniker and replace it with the other A-word. Activists.

Kyle Barnhart is a Will Rice College junior.

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