Homecoming! A time to return to your alma mater and support the football team against their archrival. It’s a time to bust out the old school colors and sing the fight song as loud as you can while you reminisce about the times you will never remember with the people you will never forget. Homecoming is a special time for college graduates. It’s a time to come back and soak in the pride of having experienced the four plus years of higher education at that particular institution.
The first week of October was Homecoming here at Lewis University. Yes, it was hard to miss the outstanding amount of school spirit that came bounding out of the student body, as well as the droves of alumni that returned to support the various sports teams who took on their archrivals this past weekend. Yes, it was hard to sleep due to the large amounts of students roaming campus in Flyer red singing the fight song at the top of their lungs to celebrate their love and devotion to the wonderful institution that houses them. Oh wait you don’t remember that? It didn’t happen? Wait, but it was Homecoming Week, right?
Lewis doesn’t have a football team, which makes it hard for us the student body to turn out to support them against their archrival. Wait, do we even have an archrival? Who is our rival school? We don’t have one of those either. But we do have many other fall sports. Men’s and women’s soccer both played over the weekend.
Their coaches made each player tell other students about their games in order to make sure that at least a few spectators showed up. Women’s volleyball was the marquee event this past weekend, and while there was a higher turnout than normal, there were no sounds of the fight song ringing through out the Neil Carey Arena. Many students aren’t even aware that we have a fight song.
We are faced with the reality that Homecoming is a non-event here at Lewis. Our school spirit is squashed under the lack of strong communication, ignorance of school happenings, the strictness of residence life and their persistence that we the student body are interested in events meant for graduates of the university.
Of course, students are equally to blame. We are provided with a plethora of on-campus activities, and how do we respond? Apathy. Lethargic. Oblivious. When given the chance to showcase our talents at open mic nights, we neither come to support our students nor do we choose to perform. WLRA threw an on-campus concert and celebration; the turnout? Pitiful.
Why are we so uninterested in embracing a legitimate school spirit? Is it because so many students are commuters, and thus are less likely to be around? Hardly. Events are planned around commuter schedules at all hours of the day.
Spirit is a by-product of students having a good time. But if residence life is so concerned with enforcing their strict rules students will always be in constant fear of being in violation, and the good times of college will be suppressed, and school spirit with it. We are not suggesting that school spirit will increase with the increase of alcohol consumption, but when students get in trouble for playing their acoustic guitar at 9:30 at night, because a residence adviser can hear it through the wall, people won’t be willing to support this university.
Our school is strict. Events are not consistent with the desires of our age group. Our college experience is shrouded with the fear of punishment, and no one knows the words to the fight song. How are we supposed to be proud of coming home?
The Lewis Flyer
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