Embrace on-campus housing opportunities

In my three years at Harding I have often heard from my peers the phrase: “I still feel like I’m being treated like a child even though I’m in college.” I think that many in the student body feel restricted because of the university’s policies and rules.

For many, the main frustration is focused toward the housing policies. Students complain living in the dorms constricts their freedom, and they were allowed more privileges living at home while still a teenager. They feel like rules such as curfew, health and safety and signing-out create an overbearing and distrustful atmosphere.

These students bide their time living in residence halls waiting until senior year when they can move off campus and live like an adult, but that process is harder than you might think.

For students to be eligible to move off campus they must meet certain requirements such as being 22 years old or a ninth semester student. Only a small amount of students meet these requirements within the traditional four-year time span, therefore some students graduate having only lived in residence halls for their entire college career. Many students have expressed disgruntled attitudes toward the strict rules, and are hoping that there will be a change in the near future. Their main issue is that because they are not allowed to move off campus, they cannot learn valuable life lessons needed for after school. These students believe that if they could move off campus they could gain experiences that will better prepare them for life after college.

Something that most students on campus are unaware of is that residence halls cost a certain amount to maintain and operate, and that cost is distributed evenly among all of its residents. If more students were to move off campus it would increase the cost for everyone else. The more people that are living in the dorm, the better it is for everyone. Perhaps this is one of the financial reasons behind the off campus rules, however, there is another reason. Harding has an extremely active campus life, so active, in fact, that we view Harding as a community rather than just a school. The students, faculty and staff at Harding genuinely care about each other on a greater level than just a school.The atmosphere and attitude on the Harding campus is comparable to a small town and that is partially due to the fact that the majority of the Harding population lives on campus.

There’s an old phrase about politics my grandpa used to say. It probably originated with someone else, but for the sake of the story I’ll assume it was his own genius. His overgrown eyebrows and American flag suspenders could bring any political conversation to life. The phrase went like this: “Any man who claims to be uninterested in politics is like a drowning man who claims to be uninterested in water.” This may sound like a doom-andgloom perspective, but don’t worry the American flag suspenders made you feel like things really couldn’t be that bad.

In any case, it has always resonated with me, and I think it’s fair to say that it applies to a multitude of subjects particularly when it’s so much easier to uphold our attitude of ignorance, sticking our heads in the sand and calling it a day.

Some claim that this attitude is especially popular within our age group — but the way I see it, everyone has this attitude about one thing or another.

In the past I’ve relied on road trips with my dad to get all caught up on the world’s happenings, in which there would be no escaping the confinements of talk-radio as my own political penitentiary. I eventually became appreciative of these times, not because I could do anything about it necessarily, but because he would always bring it down to a level I could understand and in a way that would make me care. Whether it was about economics, education or foreign affairs, at the end of the day, or in this case a road trip, I actually cared.

The one phrase I hear more often than any other is “It’s great to be at Harding,” and there is a reason for that. We go to school with each other. We eat with each other, live with each other, play with each other, cry with each other, pray with each other and laugh with each other. If anything happens on this campus, we go through it together.

Gaining experience living on your own resources is valid reasoning, but in my mind, developing relationships is even more valid. In eight years, long after I graduate, I am not going to care that I learned how to pay my water bills when I was a senior in college. I will care about the friendships and experiences I had in college. I hope that you understand that the strict off-campus rules are there only with your best interests in mind, but if you still feel like you need to go off campus, you are entitled to have a hearing before the housing appeals committee.

Right now we’re hearing a lot about what’s going on in Syria, and we may understand how terrible everything is, but often feel irrelevant to what is happening and therefore have no interest in the follow-up. The problem with this mindset is that though we’re not directly making these decisions, we may someday. We need to be able to look back on what is going on now and allow our current circumstances to guide our decisions in future situations.

To bring it a little closer to home, let’s talk about the Harding inauguration. You’re really not obligated to go. No one will be taking attendance, a couple of classes will be canceled, not to mention all your favorite shows are starting back up. You may not see an incentive to go. But I think it’s pretty safe to assume that when Bruce McLarty was a student and stood in line for a chicken biscuit (or whatever equivalent they had at the time) he wasn’t thinking about when he would someday be the university president and all the cool stuff he would get to do/ Instagram.

We tell ourselves to dream big, but in reality we scale down our intentions to inadequate expectations. We forget our relevance to what’s going on in the world and we ignore the fact that we live in a place that enables us to change it. Staying in tune with what the world is talking about and what decisions are being made is essential to being part of that conversation later on. It’s not about listening for your own knowledge and benefit — it’s about listening, learning and letting that knowledge influence your life.

What the world is talking about isn’t always important – some days are less newsworthy than others. Just know that if you come back to speak at Harding, you may be asked about Miley Cyrus in a Q & A session. All I’m saying is it’s good to be prepared.

With that in mind, consider this as a friendly reminder to listen, to follow up and most importantly to strap on your American flag suspenders and learn something.