The Observer, March 23, 2007
Volume XXXIX, Issue 21
High school classmate honored as hero, actions give perspective
Just over the weekend, one of my classmates from high school was shot and killed in New York City. He was only 19 years old and was both a student at New York University and an auxiliary police officer for the NYPD. Although I had not known him well, my impression of him in high school was a relatively mild, subdued and studious student – atypical of the students in my high school.
Thus, it was with great surprise that I learned that he had become an auxiliary officer. It was even more surprising to me that he would run after a gunman unarmed. The heroic action of a college student and auxiliary officer puts our lives as students and even the function of the university into perspective.
Too often it seems that students downplay the roles that we have in our society. We seek to perpetrate that image that we are simply just 'students.' The image of the student as a starry eyed idealist, activist, or professional apprentice in waiting is pervasive. This view is perpetrated by those who believe that students are simply adults in training who have to aspire to something within the bounds of 'acceptable' society.
Unfortunately, this view is held too often by students as well. This attitude marginalizes the effect and the potential that we have to change society. It is a rather frightening moment of self-reevaluation when we have to look beyond our personal aspirations to become doctors, lawyers, and engineers, and see our own place in the larger community.
Beyond the hollow platitudes given to students and youth as 'future leaders of America,' there is a very strong belief that students are merely at the early stages of the adult world. Students are part of the adult world, a fact often not recognized by the often patronizing and stratifying nature of an academic institution. When we are not regarded as equals in an often hierarchical sub-culture, we risk denigrating our own image and confidence in the belief that we are not important enough to enact real and viable change. At the moment, there are 18-year-olds who are soldiers, police officers and administrators – jobs which are considered to be part of the post-college universe.
Last week, letter to the editor detailed the lack of civic participation from Case students. However, I would contend that Case has not stepped up and offered opportunities that recognize students as more than merely apprentices but as equals. We have to look beyond student organizations as merely 'pet projects' or stepping stones but rather as real catalysts of change. It would seem as if the very nature of the academic institution discourages student organizations as anything but mere shadows of what can be accomplished in the 'real' world.
If our own university does not give adequate funding or support to student organizations, how can they expect students to take them seriously? It is time we start looking beyond the immediate domain of the campus as a laboratory for the adult world. It would also perhaps behoove our university to practice the moral and egalitarian values Case exudes as an academic institution.
The fact that a 19-year old college sophomore died in the line of duty with courage that many older police officers would find hard to match reveals that we are plunged deeply into the adult world whether or not we try to deny it.
