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Last night, President Bush told Americans he plans to build a
global community with America leading the way. He emphasized the
importance of eliminating terror and ensuring freedom for every
nation in the world in order to achieve this closer global
community. But this means very little if Americans don’t
first keep up with the effort to make our world seem less a
conglomerate of isolated, antagonistic people.
As attested by low voter turnout rates, especially in local
elections, most Americans don’t care about what their leaders
do or how their country behaves abroad ““ they fall into
apathy because their relatively comfortable social status allows
them to. This is especially true among one group: students.
For most students, the idea of dedicating 4,000 hours to helping
their neighbors and nation ““ as Bush asked for ““ simply
isn’t practical. This is not because we can’t do it,
but because as students, we feel overwhelmed by world issues,
sometimes convincing ourselves small scale change will not make a
difference.
This is wrong. Any action that promotes a sense of community,
even at the “lowest” or smallest level will invariably
direct us to creating larger scale change in the future.
Regardless of how sincere he is, President Bush mentioned some
ambitious goals in his address, from urging 200,000 citizens to
volunteer for the USA Freedom Corps to doubling the size of the
Peace Corps within five years. These volunteers will help in
emergency response aid, extend compassion to victims’
families and support police officers and fire departments, as well
as establish stronger relationships with their community.
The type of change students can create is different.
Students can work toward Bush’s goal of reviving the
homeland by changing their mindset and, as the president stated,
reevaluating their value system. College students in particular
were once enthusiastic about enacting change, but have grown tired
or disillusioned, so that our current generation is wasting its
potential.
Start small.
On your way to Westwood, give money to the homeless instead of
ignoring them. Dedicate a weekend to clean up beaches or get
involved with underprivileged kids in local communities. Other
possibilities include becoming involved with student groups like
fraternities and sororities with community services as their focal
point ““ or, students can join more politically oriented
groups and student government in order to enact campus and local
community change.
Building a better society can even take place in the
classroom.
Students can develop a better understanding of other disciplines
on campus by making the effort to take classes outside of their
major. Students can then combine their knowledge in different
fields to think critically about social and political issues, so
they can make educated choices at the voting booth and enter
careers seeking, at least in part, to make social progress.
For example, an engineering student can take a GE course on
American or world politics to better understand why Bush wants less
dependency on oil from the Middle East. Political science students
would benefit from attaining basic knowledge about life and
physical science issues, as well as from having technical
discussions with socially-minded engineers ““ this could
strengthen their case against or for Bush’s proposal to drill
for oil in the Arctic.
How much a student does is less important than trying. With
relatively little power, students’ feeling of being
overwhelmed by global issues is justified. What’s not
justified is ignoring the feasible change they can do to improve
their communities now and in the future. The combined small scale
change students carry out will add up to large change. We
don’t have to change our slogan, “If it feels good, do
it” as Bush suggested ““ so long as we make the
“it” helping our community.