Summarizing the section
It might not be fair to say that all of Opinions this term has been leading up to this, but there would be a good case for it.
We have had articles about how better engagement and scheduling should be a priority when it comes to advertising resources, one about keeping the university accountable, another about setting the precedent for the upcoming McMaster Students Union presidential election, one about the MSU’s involvement in causes like Movember and one about general financial literacy. These don’t even include the consistent theme through multiple pieces over the last few months of how students could do more to fight issues of any scale.
I can think of no better way to sum up the term than a relatively small MSU Open House in MUSC for five hours on a Monday.
We could talk about how more could be done to promote the event, but this is realistically true for almost any event on campus. We could get into the usage of the surplus from previous years and talk about whether the cuts or additional resources to specific services have been worth it. We could even step back a bit and talk about how it’s a great idea for the MSU to attempt to increase student involvement in its finances, especially after an odd referendum and before an upcoming MSU presidential election.
These, of course, don’t mention any new perspectives, voices or opinions that are worthwhile and could be drawn from a relatively simple event. All of these would fit what the Silhouette Opinions section has typically talked about thus far.
It’s not like the MSU’s finances are some sort of secret either. Everything you could possibly want is readily available with the cost of services per student, monthly financial reports, audited statements from previous years and operating and capital budgets all available on the MSU website. Even the Student Representative Assembly’s meeting minutes talking about certain services and potential changes have seemingly been available at earlier times than usual. Anyone could find something to talk about from any of these resources, write up a few hundred words and fit perfectly with the new identity of the section.
The main limiting factor, however, continues to be how to get students to care about issues. While all the previous topics and perspectives that the section have taken thus far have been fine, it’s difficult to sit back and go through the motions for every single topic. The university and paper have had countless good initiatives, articles, reports, findings and contributions to the community, but without much context about why it matters. It’s simply too easy to ignore or forget about an issue.
Most articles submitted to Opinions this year have been for advocating a certain perspective. While influencing students is the main part in writing a good Opinions piece, this is rarely explicitly stated as a point in a piece as a next step or a recommendation for the issue. Even the pieces on advertising have been about how to get as many people to know a resource or perspective rather than the actual effectiveness of that resource or perspective.
This open house was a sudden realization of this point. It was basically an info dump, which is completely fine for the purpose of letting people come up with their own conclusions. However, there’s no actual point about why people should care. This isn’t to say the MSU or the Silhouette should have a perspective on internal finances, but rather why having a perspective is important.
It might seem obvious, it might seem like it’s dumb to state, but every opinion, article, event or perspective is fundamentally based on whether or not you can convince other people that your work matters. Taking a side or providing information is meaningless without getting your audience to care about the main topic.
