Tuesday, November 6, 2001

Leaders ready for action, but waiting for passion
By Jaime Walker
Skiff Staff

TCU is a silent campus. Students aren’t politically active. We aren’t prone to protest. We don’t use the Reed-Sadler Mall to stage rallies for human rights causes. We don’t make a fuss about war or poverty or even money (if it grows on trees).

Students don’t typically challenge administrative decisions. Some students say they are frustrated classes are getting larger. One student said he thinks he “won’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of registering for classes because things fill up so fast now.”

But most students don’t get too worked up. “By the time I finish I will probably only know a few professors and no administrators so what does it matter what I think about policy,” the same student said. “I’ll go find something else to deal with.”

Our faculty isn’t terribly vocal either. Few have ever been reprimanded for columns published in newspapers or statements made on television. Few are simply pounding down doors in Sadler Hall to talk about issues which matter to them.

Some are very well known in their fields. Their expertise is heralded in national journals, but they aren’t heralding causes loudly enough for anyone to notice.

Some are unhappy about administrative policies like the revision of the University Core Curriculum or the fact that enrollment continues to increase even though we don’t have the resources to house or educate our new-comers, but “it’s best to keep those frustrations more personal,” one non-tenured faculty member said.

Our groundskeeping staff has from time to time expressed frustration about salary discrepancies. We are not a campus that likes to rock the boat. “I am happy to be here making money at all,” one said. “I can’t afford to complain even if I wanted to. They say they are working (on it), I have to believe that and just keep doing my job.”

Outsiders might say we are too self-absorbed to bother with the world beyond our well-manicured campus. They might say we should gather the nerve and shout. Sometimes, they are right. But not always.

We aren’t crusaders.

But if the cause is right, we jump to action with a fervor that would make even the University of Texas-Austin proud. When fellow student Robin Kindle needed money for life-saving transplants, we emptied our pockets, wrote checks and washed cars. When Keith Ann Wagner was injured in a serious accident we rallied around her. When the Rise School needed a playground, a brightly-colored swing set was erected, no questions asked.

Our silence doesn’t always signal total apathy. Often we wait for the right call — those causes which remind us of our mortality, challenge us to believe in miracles or force us to address our priorities.

There are leaders here, but they are subtle. These leaders change policy by working to change minds. They support staff by empowering them. They shape politics by encouraging analytical thinking, and they challenge the status quo one conversation at a time.

At TCU we are not always in tune with the world around us, but not all of us have completely forgotten the big picture. The campus is full of faculty, staff and students poised for action but waiting for passion.

Jaime Walker is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Roswell, Ga.
She can be contacted at (j.l.walker@student.tcu.edu).