The undeniable charm of Colorado Mesa University (CMU) is really the charm of Grand Junction.
I’m not trying to take away from campus at all because it’s absolutely beautiful and has become a home for me. It’s the town that fully supports the university’s academics, clubs, organizations, athletics, etc.
This close-knit community is the perfect environment for CMU because the public and institution work together for the best outcome, but they also push each other to progress.
It is no secret that our generation is much more progressive than generations in the past, and the university pushes some of the community’s long-held beliefs.
On the other hand, the community keeps us grounded in what today’s world is like whether you like it or not.
Both forces create a Yin and Yang for the town because neither side would be able to progress without the other.
Now let’s get somewhat controversial here, talking about the man who is in the plaza spouting out his ridiculous beliefs to whoever will listen.
He’s a good representation of the Yin and Yang because while his opinions are outrageous, they represent a real part of the culture in the world along with here in Grand Junction.
He may not be good in everyone’s eyes, but he starts the uncomfortable conversations that we need to have.
The crowd opposing him last week showed the other side of the Yin and Yang of the students and our generation pushing against that style of thinking.
While I know that many aren’t a fan of the man in the plaza, he is in the Free Speech Area of Campus. So, he is allowed to say what he believes, but so are you.
That’s the beauty of this campus; there are so many different opinions, but we are able to come together to have those conversations.
We may not have to solve the issue, but talking about it to try to help solve the problem is doing a lot more than leaving it untouched.
CMU’s culture and environment do a great job of bringing up these issues without making people feel too uncomfortable.
This campus is one of the most progressive campuses that I’ve seen and it’s due to you all for being willing to stand up for the issues that are important in today’s social climate.
This brings me to my next point; our smaller campus and class sizes do a great job of helping us develop meaningful conversations in the classroom.
The fact that we don’t have the same class sizes allows us to facilitate these conversations with our peers to gather knowledge on one another’s experiences which we can take into the real world.
The fact that our professors truly care about us and how we are doing is unique.
They are here for us and they facilitate these conversations to better us, so we have to be willing to learn about it.
The smaller class sizes allow us to have more personable relationships with our classmates and our professors.
This breeds an environment that is unique and special because we aren’t just having uncomfortable conversations to say we did it.
We do it because we want to make these uncomfortable conversations meaningful in order to support one another and to create a safe space for everyone.
The charm of CMU is the fact that we can have these uncomfortable conversations in a comfortable environment.
We make CMU special and the town of Grand Junction supports us through that and we support them. We are all in this together- as Zac Efron sang, of course.
