Many DePauw students are on a first-name basis with President Brian Casey. He stops to have conversations with students on the sidewalk in between classes. He attends campus lectures, concerts and sporting events. He is, seemingly, everywhere. But how often do we really get to pick his brain, ask him anything we want and get a completely candid version of the man that DePauw has looked to as its leader for eight years?
We are disappointed at the lack of turnout at Sunday’s Tiger Talk. When we first heard that the event was to be held in Thompson Recital Hall, we were nervous that there would not be nearly enough room for all of the students we were sure would be eager to get a glimpse into the elusive President Casey’s mind and ask him the burning questions they’ve been wondering about for months, perhaps even years.
The students who attended certainly fit the bill for what we were expecting--but on a much smaller scale.
As we were leaving the event, fellow students erupted with whispers of “Why weren’t more people there?” and “I know my friends would have loved to come to this if they’d known President Casey was speaking. Why wasn’t it advertised better?”
Maybe it could have been advertised better. As the Editorial Board for The DePauw, we know we are biased, as we know many of the happenings around DePauw before most other people do, so of course we knew about the event beforehand. In fact, The DePauw published a preview of the Tiger Talk in Friday’s issue of the paper.
So maybe it could have been advertised better. But has it ever occurred to anyone that maybe we as a DePauw community need to open our eyes and ears a little more to the goings-on on our own campus?
We are guilty of deleting the “DePauw Weekly” and “Weekender” emails that find their way into our inboxes every week, often before we’ve even fully read them. We frequently walk right past the bulletin boards in the Hub and Julian, plastered with flyers promoting all kinds of different clubs and speakers, without a second glance. And we doubt we're the only ones doing these things.
The overarching mentality that seems to be spreading through our campus is that if it doesn’t come with a keg, it’s not worth our attention.
And that’s where we come in.
The DePauw is committed to reporting what students need to know, and we are grateful every Tuesday and Friday that people read the content that we work tirelessly to provide to campus. Whether people like what they read or not, we do what we do because we know our work is important to keeping campus informed and connected.
Sometimes students embrace what we give them, and sometimes they flip right past our content in a frantic search for the Public Safety blotter. And that’s okay.
But this ‘Tiger Talk’ is a perfect example of why we do what we do. It was an interesting event that we're sure much of campus would have loved to attend. If only they’d read about it in The DePauw.