To the Editor:

In addition to promoting news across campus, The Observer functions as a public forum for dialogue on relevant events, ideas and opinions. I have a weekly opinion column in that paper titled “The meaning of Spartan life.” I’m taking a week off from writing in my column to ask the entire CWRU community, where are letters to the editor?

A total of fifteen of letters to the editor have appeared in print from September 2013 until now. A majority of them were submitted at the same time in response to a pair of articles which assaulted the Greek community, a few were not from students and one was from me. But 15 letters is barely one a week for a semester, let alone the whole year period the number reflects. I want to know why there are so few.

Students: Are you all just apathetic and over-obsessed with homework? Do you possess any opinions unrelated to the trivial, mundane events of your own life? Do you have any awareness of what is happening in the world, in America, on campus? Do you have anything to say about anything?

The blatant absence of letters to the editor yields two logical responses:
1. You don’t read The Observer.
2. The answer to my first question is yes; to the latter three, no.
Perhaps there should be a number three to account for a hybrid answer of these two conclusions, but I still don’t understand why Case Western Reserve University students rarely write letters to the editor.

The problem I have is that I know you have something to say about everything. The stuff I hear come out of students’ mouths while walking behind them, sitting near them or actually conversing with them is the epitome of opinionated speech. Interestingly enough, it often has to do with campus-related issues, like how annoying SAGES is and how much of a rip-off the meal plan is.

Without interaction through open discussion about the ideas pressing to our campus members, our collective community suffers. Voice your opinion on SAGES or Bon Appetit. Engage with an opinion columnist’s viewpoint in the next week’s issue. Write a response condemning everything I’ve written here. Demonstrate your passion and submit a letter to the editor to observer@case.edu.

Jacob Martin
Class of ‘15