The Northeastern News

Walking through Northeastern's campus this past weekend brought back a lot of good memories. Like the time I got chased by a homeless guy, ran through a water fountain with all my clothes on, and actually made out with a girl. But it also reminded me of a simpler time when I was a mere fantasy mortal, the facebook and myspace hadn't been created yet, sodoku was still a foreign craze, and cute girls actually stalked me.

Nowadays my life is compounded by questions like, 'who should I draft in the 15th round in a 12 team yahoo league?' or 'should I go with the blue shirt with white stripes or the white shirt with blue stripes?' Tough questions I know. Which probably explains why I miss the hustle and bustle of being the most dominant student leader of all time.

I still can't walk one block within a one mile radius of campus without seeing somebody I know and yet it just doesn't feel right anymore. I know that I should move on since I'm now an alum and not worry about the issues facing the current undergraduate students anymore. But then again I'm the same guy whose still in love with my first grade crush.

Moving on and letting go is hard to do and so without www.nushuffle.com to pick up the slack for me I'm left with no choice but to give my take on a few issues currently ruffling feathers on Huntington Ave.

1. The decision to convert afterHOURS to a Starbucks: Sorry Leigh if you just read that and went into septic shock. But unfortunately our version of Saved By the Bell's Max is now a place where people will go to get maxed out on coffee beans.

I doubt that the syringe we found in the bathroom that one time had anything to do with it. It was more likely the fact that at 11 pm on a Saturday night you could find more people in the library than on the dance floor.

The problem with afterHOURS was sadly that it was overrun with freshmen. That's a good thing if you're a creepy 5th year senior hosting a fraternity party on Mission Hill. A bad thing if you want the older crowd to stop on by for late night munchies after last call at Our House.

As a result nobody went late and by not serving dinner to save on kitchen and wait staff costs nobody went early either. In fact, nobody went at all. Ever. It's almost as if afterHOURS was the prom and Northeastern students were the fat girl.

But it didn't have to be that way. Two things could have saved afterHOURS: 24 hour service or serving alcohol at select times. Neither happened. Now another faceless corporation takes over space on campus. Which should make the Board of Trustees very happy. And future generations of Huskies very sad. Very sad yet very hyper.

2. Back to tri-mesters?: Word on the street is that NU is thinking about bringing back trimesters. Well, sort of. After having 3 four month long trimesters NU switched to two semesters two years ago to try to conform with society and be more like BU and BC. However, they still had a summer session so technically there were still trimesters. Even more technically students could cram classes into two summer sessions so there were really quarters when there used to be trimesters and were supposed to be semesters. Somewhere along the way twiny, winy, mini mesters also were introduced or so I heard. Anyway, that's a story for another day.

After about a year of semesters rumor has it that they are now thinking of making co-op a four month long experience instead of the traditional six. So, basically instead of 4-4-2-2 you now have 4-4-4(2-2) or something like that. Which is basically the same thing I think just packaged differently. Actually, I have no idea what I'm talking about anymore. My source for this information was a drunken flusy so I'm about as lost as you are. Next topic.

3. The announcement of a Student Affairs division restructuring: How does a rat know to jump off a ship before it goes down? The same way that all of the top level administrators in the Freeland administration left town before he stepped down.

In the aftermath, the Student Affairs office announced a restructuring that should help end the NUShuffle (yeah, right) by linking the Residential Life office with the Student Activities office. It's not a bad idea since other universities employ a similar strategy. Yep, you guessed it. BU is one such schoool.

However, this new restructuring will fail where all others have as well. You can't stop the NUShuffle with fancy titles and buzz words like synergy. You can only stop it by being there full time for the students. Being unreachable because you're in a reslife meeting at the student center doesn't help student x solve his problem with his tuition bill.

What they should do is create a position for someone whose a public advocate. Who gets paid to sit in an office and play snood while he or she waits for a student to come in and complain about something. That person would be a one man help desk and would be able to take the pulse of the student body and know what issues are affecting them. Heck, the position could even be filled by a student, perhaps a member of the Student Government Association. Until that happens the disconnect between the administration and the students will still be there.

4. Can't get a Springfest act? That's ludacris!: OR so the chant went two years ago when Springfest was cancelled in the wake of the Patriots Super Bowl riots. Was it really our fault though that the guy who got hit by a car hadn't heard the song 'move bitch get out the way' by our would be headliner?

Now two years later the Council for University Programming (CUP) still can't get a big name act to come to campus. This year the Black Eye Peas and Kayne West have turned them down. At this rate organizers might have to bring back the Village People just to be able to put on a show.

It's pathetic really. The only thing more pathetic would be a saturday night spent playing Dungeons and Dragons. Thankfully not even I have done that! Although I have played Risk once or twice or two hundred.

Anyway, the point is that NU should stop aiming for the top. You never went to say that. You always want to encourage your kids to dream big. But enough is enough already. We don't have to be in the Top 100 and we certainly don't need Aerosmith in Centennial Commons. The place can only hold a thousand students anyway.

What we need is a rising star talent who'll put on a good show. Case in point. Three years ago a young comedian named David Chappelle came to campus. I didn't go because I had never heard of him. I should have. A year later the Chappelle show was born and now I can't go five minutes or 2 blog articles without saying, 'I'm Craig Shames bitch'. Getting a young rising star act like that would be great for the school. At the very least it'll be better than constantly having one's hopes dashed by big name acts who think your school is just a bigger version of Mass Art.