Smokey Bear has been telling us for decades, “only you can prevent forest fires.” Taking a line from good ol’ Smokey, we’re saying, “only you can make Colorado Mesa University better.”
In case you missed it, we already ran “CMU, love it or hate it, it’s your choice,” wherein we stated that, with the right mindset, CMU is already a pretty great place. This editorial is not a contradiction of that. However, just because something is already good doesn’t mean it can’t be better.
To make it better, each and every one of us must be the “you” referred to in the headline. Smokey wasn’t talking to one individual. Rather, he was telling everybody to take a personal investment in protecting nature from the devastating impact of fires.
We want every member of CMU to make a similar personal investment in improving the campus and college experience for everybody. The great thing is that it’s not really asking a lot. Primarily it just means showing some common decency and consideration of others.
First, don’t use the handicapped door openers if you’re not handicapped. Sure, it’s convenient to have the door just pop open for you at the push of a button. However, it also causes wear and tear on the equipment which can lead some to be inoperable.
Some students, faculty and staff really need the handicapped door openers to work and it creates a big difficulty in their lives when the buttons stop functioning. It’s just selfish to make a handicapped individual’s life harder simply to save oneself a very minor inconvenience.
As long as we’re on the topic of doors, another way to make CMU better is to pay attention to others coming in or going out of buildings. It only takes a second or two to hold the door open for the next person. Are we ever in too big of a rush to invest two seconds for the cause of being a decent human being?
Additionally, if somebody is holding the door open for you, pick up the pace. Somebody that stops to hold the door may not be making a huge investment of their time, but they’ve still placed their day on hold for you. Plodding along at a snail’s pace with a sense of entitlement tells them their time isn’t valuable. Saying “thank you” is also nice.
Picking up the pace also applies to crosswalks. It’s very uncourteous to slowly trudge through a crosswalk whilst staring at one’s phone while traffic waits. Showing motorists that you value their time by moving with a purpose across the road can greatly impact how they feel about having to stop for you in the first place.
On the topic of walking, you can make CMU better by being considerate when using the walkways on campus. This is true whether you walk, board or ride a bike. The walkways are wide, but we can make them seem incredibly narrow if we don’t pay attention to others. Keep your eyes up, observe others around you and don’t take up the whole path by walking shoulder-to-shoulder in large groups.
When you are in the classroom, you have another opportunity to make CMU better. An animated conversation with your friends can be great, but it should take place before or after class, not in the middle of a lecture.
Talking during lecture is disrespectful to the effort put in by your professor to prepare information. It is also disrespectful of your fellow students. It tells them that their desire to learn is meaningless to you.
Class is also not the best venue for texting, snapchat or checking your Facebook page. Doing so creates distractions for everybody around you and takes away from their ability to learn. Even if the subject seems easy to you, somebody else may be struggling, and those little distractions add up to a lot of information going unprocessed.
This is far from a comprehensive list. There are many ways that every member of the CMU community can make the university better. Ultimately, it really just boils down to thinking about others. Courtesy costs nothing yet can mean everything.
We’re all in this together; one great big Mavily. How we treat each other collectively can make this university a great or a miserable place.
Only you can make CMU better.
