Page 2 – The Waltonian

Plans have been underway for nearly a year to renovate our beloved, yet aging Dining Commons. Upon returning to campus this spring, students were greeted with some of the changes that have already been finished.

Immediately noticeable is the new paint job. While we might debate the colors, it does feel fresh to see the walls get a make-over. There are tiny details such as the area above the coffee station being trimmed back, as well as the removal of some hardware that felt out of place to begin with.

Students will notice that the style of the stations is significantly different, which matches the more modern feel of the entire redesign. Practically, the breakfast area is now much easier to use, and the placement removes some of the congestion around the classics line. I do miss those high tables though.

Additionally, plates and silverware seem to be organized more logically, and don’t suffer from becoming the object of scavenger hunts when the dish room is full. All this being said, the most distinct change (or lack thereof) is that many of the renovations are still unfinished. The designs on display at the entrance are promising, but its a shame many of us won’t see them before we graduate.

This is mostly in part due to the space and time necessary to set up and install the new chairs and tables, as well as the proposed new classics line. It would be highly difficult to continue with most of the renovations because of the need for the Dining Commons’ use this semester.

Finally, I hope that with the aesthetic change, they also consider updating or changing up the menu. While new tables are nice, we come there to eat! Lets’s hope that future students appreciate what has been a long time coming.

Maybe you locked yourself out of your room again, maybe you had an emergency or maybe you really just needed someone. Whatever it may be, when you don’t know what to do, you call your RA. It is hard to exactly pin down what a resident assistant is, because it encompasses a lot of things. In some ways, you’re a friend and in other ways, you’re not.

At some schools, the role of an RA is much less or much more than what it is here at Eastern University. At a larger school, you might have completely different jobs for RAs and other residence life staff, while at a small school like this one, the jobs are all rolled into one. During the course of the job, the RAs plan events, build community on the halls, and to some students’ chagrin, enforce university policy.

Most people understand what an RA does, but what is the essence of what makes a person RA material? At Eastern University, to become a member of this team, you are expected to exemplify Eastern’s values of faith, reason, and justice. Just as we are a school of diverse people and beliefs, so is the residence staff. We all have different and even conflicting ideas about our faith, but what’s important for each RA is that they encourage the development of each and every student’s soul. Our staff, along with the university chaplains, are here to help guide you as you mature both spiritually and intellectually. Reason is paramount, as not every situation is black and white.

Sometimes during the job, an RA might have to make difficult decisions, and the rest of your staff and your resident director are there to support you. Most importantly, an RA (and arguably any Eastern student) must have a passion for justice. How to challenge students to be better, and when to show grace and compassion are essential qualities of a good RA. You’re not here to be a rigid hand of the law, but you also have a responsibility to Eastern University’s very ethos. This is not easy, and requires considerable character.

If you’ve made it this far, good! I haven’t scared you away. The job might sound daunting, and in some ways it is, but Eastern doesn’t need (or want) you to be perfect. It is a job, but the RA program is dedicated to giving you the tools necessary to becoming the very best you can be. There is extensive training on everything from basic counseling skills to conflict resolution, and you are fully expected to fail sometimes. You are going to not know what to do, but that’s why you have a staff of other RAs and RDs that are behind you.

Eastern University is a place wholly concerned with the growth of all its students. As an RA, you both receive and facilitate this mission. We understand that it is only by becoming better ourselves, that we can ever hope to inspire others. Whereas the role of an RA at another school might appear similar, the motivation here is distinct in that we model our method on the leadership and example of Jesus Christ. The first shall be the last, and it is in the service of others that we set ourselves upon the path of righteousness.

My own path, always continuing and surprising me, has lead me to serve in the program for the past two years. As an underclassmen, I was untempered and immature. The first time I applied, I was not accepted to be an RA. It was a huge disappointment, and challenged my self-worth. Eastern didn’t give up on me though. Given time to learn and grow, I was able to join the team going into my junior year. So, if you think you’d like to serve your campus as an RA, apply later this spring semester. We need people with the qualities I’ve mentioned, and don’t be discouraged if you doubt yourself. You just might be surprised what you’re capable of.

During the Exodus, the Hebrews were reminded of their time in bondage, specifically commanded by God to not allow themselves to forget what it was like to suffer. We suffer, so that we might understand one another, or rather, empathize with each other. Pain is what makes us able to know justice. This theme is repeated in scripture. Only through loss do we learn why we must care so deeply for one another. As we approach the holiday season, and take part in the festivities, I imagine that after the commercialized consumer frenzy dies down, most of us will discuss the “true meaning of Christmas” as per the now iconic Charlie Brown special.

“Unto us a child is born,” says Linus, proclaiming the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, born in a manger to his mother Mary. The stars, the quiet fire, everyone together in house… We seem to emulate the nativity even unknowingly as we gather with our loved ones. The gifts and lights? None of it matters. People are what matter, and still there’s a subtle irony to all this. While we embrace a story of a family without a home seeking refuge in what little can be offered after they are denied elsewhere, we don’t seem to see the same lesson the Hebrews were forced to learn long before the coming of Christ. In spite of our suffering, we have chosen to close our doors to those in need. Sometimes through how we vote, and other times very literally. It is fitting that the migrant crisis has reached its precipice in time for the holidays, and as I look around at the way we in this country seem to feel about our neighbors, I am disappointed.

Very easily, I could beat my Bible over your head with my politics, just as I’m sure there’s a collection of verses you’d love to throw back at me. If I knew wholeheartedly the will of God, I wouldn’t bother trying to convince anyone either way, but just as there is an unexplainable joy in the image of the nativity, there is an unavoidable horror in the image of screaming children and starving refugees. This idea that we have a moral duty to those in need, regardless of its convenience to us, finds its reprise in Matthew 25:35, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

I do not mean to sow guilt, but instead thoughtfulness. What good is the “true meaning of Christmas” if it does not stir us to act?

With Brexit talks coming to fever pitch, and the future of Britain’s relationship to the rest of the world uncertain, the country faces its growing issues domestically. Across the UK there are currently tens of thousands of homeless people without any security. Global poverty issues such as food security, housing, and access to healthcare are unfortunately common in the developed world.

While these situations still pale in comparison to those of the global south and developing nations, it is notable that these same extreme poverty conditions are prevalent in otherwise wealthy nations. With the quality of life generally amicable for most people living in the developed world, questions of justice and stability arise when faced with this growing issue.

In the UK, the homelessness crisis has had a distinct effect on young people, which has lead the government and other organizations to start treating it as its own distinct issue. According to a study by Cambridge University’s Centre for Housing and Planning Research, there are approximately 40,000 young people in housing accommodation due to homelessness, a little less than half of the estimated near 100,000 young people without consistent housing.

It is suggested that this estimate is far below the actual amount, as it is difficult to track and study. Many of these young people exist in a limbo-like state as they spend a few months at a time sleeping at the residences of friends and family, but then find themselves without a place to stay shortly after. This causes the homeless population to fluctuate each year.

CentrePoint, a charity organization organized to combat the problem has identified several agitating factors that are leaving these youth without a home. Most youth who are housed through one of the programs stated that familial breakdown and violence as reasons that keep them on the streets.

Rampant mental health issues which in turn cause these youth to turn to illegal drugs often keep them from being able to re-enter society. Debt and poverty serve as limiting factors in re-entry, as well as a lack of funds or completed formal education prevents many of these youth from finding work. Approximately 1 in 10 of these youth are unaccompanied minors fleeing civil war and violence in their home countries.

It is apparent that while there are ways for youth in the UK to find themselves homeless, the key contributor to the sheer volume of homeless youth is the inability to re-enter society and find work. The problem as identified by CentrePoint is less that these young people are being pushed into homelessness, but more so that once they become homeless, there is little opportunity to find their way out.

There’s a lot of debate nowadays about what exactly the purpose of a University is. You might think it is fairly straightforward, but upon further inspection it is not so certain. Many people will tell you to go to school to get a job. I assume that’s at least true in some respect to most of us. The current cost of college makes going for any other reason seem foolish. Still, many students study fields that lack a clear career path, such as philosophy or theology. Some students will make a career out of being a student intent on obtaining a PHD to teach in their field and do research. For others there is the social experience. Especially at a Christian college, the prospect of meeting a potential future spouse is a very real goal for some people.

All of these are legitimate reasons to go to college, but what I am curious about is this conflict we hear in the media over supposed “safe spaces.” There is a debate on whether the University should be a purely intellectual space, or whether it should be tailored toward a sense of social justice. Personally I sit not on the fence, but on the sidelines wondering how I might reconcile those ideas. The foundation of western democracy is ideally that ideas should stand on their own merit, and that reason, rather than testimony should serve to measure that merit. Now, academically we know there are limits to this approach, but the idea lingers in the university space. Some would argue that the perceived harm or implication of an idea should not be considered, but rather its validity and consistency. In contrast, others (myself included) would argue that you can’t separate ideas from their source, and maybe more importantly, their consequences.

We want the university to be a marketplace of ideas. We want everyone to have a platform to speak. There is cause for concern, however, as to how far that should go. In the current political climate, where ideas like nationalism are not taboo, we should provide a platform even if the potential harm is great. I struggle even with my own political leanings being construed with those of cold-war era dictators and their associated crimes. While I and many of my peers are sympathetic to leftist ideas, it is impossible to avoid the implications of history. Beyond that, how do I have a reasonable discussion with someone who thinks that my friends who have a different skin color or sexuality are beneath them? How far are we willing to extend the idea of an “intellectual space” if it means accepting ideas such as open racism or authoritarian politics? Don’t people have a right to be protected from that?

I don’t know that I know the answer to these questions, but I do believe that the values that make a person value everyone’s right to be heard should be the same values that make a person value everyone’s right to exist. I don’t believe that the tolerant have an obligation to tolerate the intolerant, but I’m left asking myself, “are there things I believe that cause people harm?”

When you are new, be it at work, at school, or anywhere, you find yourself in an awkward position. If you are too ambitious or bold, you run the risk of seeming aggressive or overconfident. If you hold back, people might walk all over you. Especially in the workplace, there seems to be a kind of order to things. You do what you’re told. You are less part of the group and more just following it around. So, why do I bring this up?

When people criticize something Eastern University does, who is the object of that discontent? It’s an important question. Certainly we can’t bring our grievances to the stone walls and windows. No one is casting their complaint towards Walton Pond. So who do we blame when things aren’t right? Is it the president? The board? The faculty or staff? Do we students share in the burden?

In high school (for those of you who had the pleasure of going through the public education system), we develop a sort of inherent righteous anger toward institutions. Dress codes, attendance, rules upon rules. In our microcosm we rage against the machine, and we can because we didn’t choose this. We were just told we had to go to school one day. Things are a little different when you go off to college. Even with societal and family pressure, it is still a choice we made.

As a freshman, I took full advantage of what Eastern had to offer. I enjoyed SAB events and explored the many halls and facilities. I went to class and engaged in study. Yes, I was paying for it all, and yes, I chose to be here, but everything was being done for me. I wasn’t a part of it yet. When I talked about Eastern, both the institution and the community, I talked about it as if it was something separate from myself. I went to Eastern. My perspective was largely the same until I was well into my second year and applied to be a resident assistant.

For better or for worse, as an RA I now represented my school. I became invested in this place, and when I heard people talk negatively about it, I felt like they were talking negatively about me. I walked these halls. I took these classes. I cleaned the dining commons floor. This was a home I chose, and I’m not the only one. Policies and ideas are nebulous and only matter in the context of the people who participate in them. We drive the culture of our school. There are students here who start and run clubs and organizations, students who are doing great work for the world while they study, and there are students here who carry us when we can’t make it on our own.

As a senior and as an RA, I can’t complain all that much. This is my 4th year, and I’ve had a lot of time to affect the changes I wanted. And yes, all on my own I couldn’t possibly do all that much, but I’m just one student. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we can’t agree. What you think is best for this school might not be what someone else thinks is best. The point is that we are stewards of the environment we live in. We are Eastern. Its struggle is our struggle. Its quality is our own.

Politics are ever-present in the lives of most Americans. While I can’t say this with absolute certainty, it at least seems as though this fact is more true on college campuses than anywhere else. Where your Thanksgiving dinner table or workplace shies away from the topic, the university embraces the national dialogue; so much so that it sometimes takes center-stage. I voted last Tuesday, and from the numerous Instagram photos of my peers boasting “I voted” stickers, I can infer I wasn’t in the minority on that. So what happened? Did we win? Did they lose?

Midterm elections have a notoriously low voter turnout. In fact, Americans don’t show up to the polls nearly as much as one would hope, but the midterms suffer from living in the shadow of the general election, and as such show a deficit. This year, NPR reported that over 47% of eligible voters went to the polls last week. That might seem low, but its actually the highest its been for midterm elections since the 1960’s. Maybe those comparing the late 60’s political upheaval to the modern day weren’t so far off. After the democrats came up short in 2016, the impetus to make gains this year had a sense of urgency about it. Even the republicans felt the heat. Trump himself rallied his faithful to vote after several long-held republican offices became battlegrounds.

With the dust settled on wednesday morning, we were no longer living under a single party government. In spite of the gerrymandered districts, accusations of voter suppression, and support from the white house, the democrats took the house of representatives, flipping well over the necessary seats needed to secure a majority. By the time the votes were counted, 225 democrats will hold seats in january, to the republicans’ 197. A few seats are vacant or awaiting finalization, but they won’t have a meaningful impact on the house. The night wasn’t a total loss for conservatives. The GOP was able to improve its position in the senate ever so slightly, and made gains in gubernatorial races. The federal elections had the spotlight, but the democrats also made significant progress at the state level, leaving the number of controlled legislatures nearly even between parties, a contrast from the republican dominated state assemblies and congresses we currently observe.

Another important factor to keep in mind was that this election represented a shift in politics beyond the red and blue. With the march for women in its second year, and reproductive rights a key issue in the current climate, women are making waves at the national level. This year saw more women than ever run for congress and governorships, with many of them seizing control of heavily contested space in the political sphere. Notably, among them were many women of color, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who will be the youngest woman ever elected to congress. Predictably most of these women ran as democrats, but between the young energetic new progressive movement and demographic changes, I think the democrats as well as the republicans are due for a new kind of politics. With representative voices taking the stage, we should watch closely how this shifts the status quo in this country.

Tensions remain high amid hostile press conferences following the election. Worse still, several races carry the ugly taint of uncertainty as allegations of voter suppression and fraud hang over key races. It’s impossible to tell at the moment which cases are legitimate or not, but when so many instances are cropping up, I’d be hard pressed to believe that there was no wrongdoing behind some of the victories.

The democrats are celebrating, but the ball is in their court now. It is easy to play the victim when your opponents are in complete power, but with control of the house, they will have control over key committees, among them, the Mueller investigation. This carries with it power, but also a significant responsibility. There is cause to suspect impeachable offenses on Trump’s part (or at least his allies) but I worry that if the democrats rush forward without sufficient cause or evidence it will only end in disaster, for the party and for the country. For government to work, the people need to have faith in it. This is why we have elections. This is why we call ourselves a democracy. Trust needs to be rebuilt between America and its institutions, and the only way to do that is to move forward with integrity. As the former first lady Michelle Obama so elegantly put it, it is time to “go high.”

Sources: CNN, NPR, Nytimes

Recently, under the shadow of political tensions over the Ukraine and its current conflict with Russia, the church is seeing a major split in an otherwise enduring tradition. Where in the west, the protestant church is characterized by countless divisions and subdivisions, in the east, major schisms are far less common as part of the character of the Orthodox church. The Orthodox church claims primacy as one of the oldest Christian churches in the world. The Church is not immune to the grander geopolitical drama, however, and the current dispute over the Ukraine is indicative of this.

The Moscow patriarchate, which presides over most of the world’s Russian Orthodox members, is in open opposition to the patriarchate of Constantinople. While none of the patriarchs are equivalent to the Pope in status in comparison with the Catholic church, the patriarch of Constantinople is considered the “first among equals.” Constantinople declared earlier this month that the Ukrainian church is no longer under Moscow’s jurisdiction.

The Ukrainian church has sought independence for some time now, with the ethnic split in the eastern Ukraine at the heart of both the political and religious crisis. With many favoring the split as another win for Ukrainian nationalism, others are worrying about the long lasting impact on the global church. Moscow presides over nearly 150 million people belonging to the Orthodox church, slightly over half the total church.

In the United States and across the globalized world, the issue of the church splitting is even more complicated with all three major branches of Christianity coexisting in close proximity to one another. Christians everywhere are concerned about what this means for them and their relationship to the church as a whole.

There is an idealized separation of church and state in the United States that is supposed to protect both the state and the church from the other’s influence. Whereas in the eastern Europe, it seems politics and war will once again cause turmoil in the church.

Despite the 24 hours news cycle often drifting away from the issue, the epidemic of mass shootings continue. We must all feel so numb of the predictable conversations that will be had. Conversations deeply concerned with the mechanics of firearms will be had, the second amendment will be invoked, and the one question on everyone’s minds will be the one with the most varied answer: Why? It’s probably easy to write off a person’s actions a soley a product of their own deficiency, but we know better than that. No person acts isolated from their environment, and yet even that particular will be in contention. The motivations of the gunman will be speculated over ad infinitum.

There will be ceremony for the lost, because at the end of the day, those people are dead. Regardless of why, they died, and whatever they had left to say will forever go unsaid. One person is too many, but so many so often are lost and we don’t even have time to mourn. We hope that maybe the next crisis is far enough out that we will have taken steps to making sure it won’t happen again by then.

The antagonist that agonizes all this pain and confusion is a general hopelessness that has beset us. From any angle, everyone sees their outlook in a particularly grim light, and why shouldn’t they? Any concession made to the “other side” would lead to utter ruin. There’s also the ever present material reality of the current ecological crisis. Our system is unsustainable, and more and more people lose hope in legitimate structures.

Anti-semitism is so evil, not just as a particularly distasteful variety of racism, but in the horrible collective trauma of the world wars still felt nearly one hundred years later. So much senseless bloodshed among a laundry list of human rights disasters of the last century. I will argue that while the Pittsburgh gunman did ultimately act on their own, we are collectively responsible for the world that breeds that kind of hate.

Most people don’t enjoy the idea of violence, and while many people (myself included) have an understanding that the defense of oneself and others from violence is a necessary precondition for us to act with force, that’s not quite the line we’ve drawn. In the current paradigm, violence and force are considered an acceptable political tool to achieve our aims. While I don’t know anyone who would openly take that position, it is implicit in our rhetoric. Threats and yes even the often maligned notion of civility matter. We often want to pursue something more pure and quicker than politics. Politics are slow and bureaucratic, but it turns out it might be the only thing standing between us and what I can only describe as a Hobbesian nightmare.

It is no ones fault but the gunman’s for what happened in Pittsburgh this weekend. Sadly, if we want things to change, the responsibility is on all of us to shift our way of thinking towards a culture that does not encourage and legitimize these horrible tragedies. My thoughts are with those people grieving, but I know that wont be enough.

In an era soon fit to match maybe only the late 60’s, political tension has remained high since the 2016 election. Mass marches, protests, and online movements quickly eclipsed the then present anger over the incoming administration. What started symbolically years ago with the Occupy movement, now a common language to talk on social issues, the new radical wave of social justice seemed to occur almost simultaneously with Trump’s rise to power. While the political sphere returned to nationalist politics and even traditionalist-right sentiment, the culture wars are now dominated by a sudden wave of radical ideas. Some of them old, but still others re-articulate themselves into the modern structure of society,

In response to police violence and mass-incarceration “Black Lives Matter” has become a tremendous force in our intellectual space, where no one can avoid talking about them, forcing the individual in a sense to “pick a side.” Labor politics return in their true blue form to the United States. Where other movements have focused on exclusively political solutions, the populist politics left behind by both Trump and Bernie, left workers with a more direct approach. For the first time in recent history, giants like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are forced to confront their failure to meet the socio-economic needs of their employees, with both suffering from successful organizing. Interestingly, while not a particularly large movement (but one I have personal interactions with fairly frequently) the decidedly pro-life movement, that incorporates a distinctly Christian understanding of the value of human life, while extrapolating that idea onto a larger ecological model of society, specifically in our regards to economic justice and the preservation of the ecosystem.

However, the court of public opinion is a numbers game. Without widespread exposure and (more importantly) widespread appeal, no particular camp will make any amount of tangible progress towards its aims. So, the modern radical enters into a tenuous pact with major corporations. Advertising has bastardized the vehicle for justice into another tool to sell products. Like anything else, everything about what we do becomes a political statement, one way or the other. In particularly bad taste was the widely remembered Pepsi commercial, where kylie jenner ameliorates the extremely nuanced issue of police brutality by simply offering a S.W.A.T. officer a can of Pepsi. Gestures like these reveal how little the boardroom committee meetings really concern our needs, and how little that structure serves its original purpose. The Pepsi ad suddenly takes on an sarcastic, even mocking attitude. Most recently, many conservatives found themselves unable to cope with Nike’s new spokesperson: Colin Kaepernick. What was so striking to me about this was not the reactions, but instead the embracing of corporate structures by supposedly radically minded groups.

Outside just the symbolic, this is impossible to ignore when understanding the current political landscape, and it’s something we should be wary of. If we really care about the causes and fights that deserve our attention, then we should take care to not contradict our principles for the momentary gain a shoe commercial provides. Real change isn’t going to come from the top on down, and waiting for that change to come only prolongs the issue. It even cheapens the grander message in particularly troubling instances. Further still, This same relationship can be observed to exist between the two major political parties in the United States and their respective bases. Within a realistically narrow margin of ideas do we have a choice in the direction our government takes. Issues like gun rights and abortion prohibition have become effective at keeping each base in line, for fear of losing to the “other side.”

Capitalism survives on the continued expansion of markets in any possible industry, whether it be something overtly sinister like private for-profit prisons, or even the spread of information across social networking. Ideals become memes, and every rallying cry is a hashtag dictated by facebook algorithms. “The revolution will not be televised” echos: we cannot rely on existing structures to produce the change we want. They will only ever reproduce that same status quo that produced them. It is up to us to see those commitments to justice through.