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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 10, 2015)
Senior Boot Bag VOICES The Battalion I 2.10.15 Price Includes Logo and Name (More logos available) Shop for Little Aggies to an Aggie Xmas: etsy.com/shop/aggiesand.bows by Charlotte, Reveille’s Seamstress Store Location: A&B Self Storage 1701 N Earl Rudder Fwy Bryan, TX 979-778-2293 charboeg@yahoo.com Second Location: Craft and Antique Mall CS 2218 Texas Ave. South College StatioN, TX 979-255-8905 WE HAVE CHOCOLATES! Dark Chocolate Almonds Peanut 5utter Malt Balls Milk Chocolate Raisins Honeij-Sweetened chocolate Truffles .Assorted Chocolate Bars ALSO AVAILABLE IN BULK! % iP K33B ill Celc-brating 26 of Setting the iStaxos Yxttey! If You Have Something To Sell, Remember Classifieds Can Do It! Call 845-0569 the battalion brest tre Weekends Feb 7th - Mar 29th and Fri. Mar 20th Full Contact Jousting Tournaments Feb 28 - Mar I and Mar 28 - 29 Camping is Available! Save $3 at r '* % sA h s Only 1 hour from Bryan - College Station ww w,Sherwood ForestFai rexom (512)222-6680 DONATE PLASMA TODAY! NEW DONORS EARN IN YOUR FIRST 2 DONATIONS TWO LOCATIONS TO DONATE AT! (979) 315-4101 I (979)314-3672 4223 Wellborn Rd 700 University Dr E. r Ste 111 Bryan, TX 77801 | College Station, TX 77840 EDITORIAL BOARD Young makes the first steps like an old pro, but his move off campus sets troubling tone jj^ ven without a bowtie or ■■ Aggie Ring, incoming Lb A&M president Michael K. Young ably engaged with students Monday in a manner unseen at A&M since its last president left for Missouri. Young was candid, funny and confident in a meet ing with student leaders. He made a warm impression. But later that morning, administration made a mis step when Chancellor John Sharp announced Young would live off campus. Vacant since R. Bowen Loftin left for Missouri, the on-campus president’s home to Earl Rudder, Ray Bowen and Robert Gates will remain empty. Shifting from Loftin, the president of graduation selfies, to one housed away from campus is a shock. The residence will be used to host dignitaries, donors and former students. The home will doubtless be more valuable to the university in this function — particularly on game weekends — but what about the rest of the year? Already the vice presi dent of student affairs resi dence sits empty. Cain Hall will soon give way to a hotel. Too often, administration has prioritized the comfort of its donors and friends over the student experience. I-: Nikita Redkar — THE BATTALION The A&M president's home has remained empty since R. Bowen Loftin left office. Prior classes of students knew where to find their campus leaders. Now, no student will tell his or her friends of a time Young invited them in for lemonade or cookies, which Loftin did with some regularity. It’s not clear whether Young had any part in the choice. He joked, “The explanation to me was, ‘Get your own damn house.’” But whoever signed off on it weakened Young’s founda tion with students before he even took office and marred an otherwise stellar public appearance from the new president. Texas A&M is about togetherness. Young seems to understand that — when asked, he told student lead ers Muster is his favorite tradition. But this is a unique university and anyone dropped into its culture faces a steep learning curve of tra ditions and quirks. Moving Young off campus steepens that curve and frays ties be tween the president and the students. Young has been in higher education since most mem bers of this student body were busy learning to walk. He has done this before. Twice he has assumed the leadership of a university — at Utah in 2004 and Wash ington in 2011 — and his experience in endearing him- The Battalion’s editorial opinion is detennined by its Board of Opinion, uHtli the editor in chief having final responsibility. Mark Dore Editor in Chief Aimee Breaux Managing Editor Jennifer Reiley Assistant Managing Editor self to students shows. The meeting with student leaders was smartly positioned before the general media availability in a “students come first” gesture that did not go un noticed. A less confident adminis trator might have kept staff in the room. Young didn’t. He answered every question put before him and came armed with a lighthearted joke about the BYU-Utah rivalry, which could easily have been swapped for A&M and UT, to similar effect. Young has the ability to be a student’s president, even from off campus. His presi dency has only begun to take shape, and his personality will be well received among Aggies. It’s unfortunate, then, that students won’t get to see him where he belongs — in the president’s home. | VOICES Voluntourism: Stop that plane Spencer Davis @SpencerDavis__ TX ~W” t’s summer application I season. Students will pur- JL sue a wealth of intern ships, summer counseling positions and study abroad programs. As you plan your own summer, think about this: more and more students are shunning summer jobs and the beaches for the op portunity to travel overseas and volunteer their time working in orphanages, sum mer camps and community housing projects. It’s called “voluntourism,” and more than 1.6 million voluntourists are spending $2 billion a year, according to the think tank Tourism, Research and Marketing, which tracks this developing industry. For most, these vaca tions are a promise of exotic adventure coupled with charity. Voluntourists give up a week or two of their summer to travel to another continent to work, but a growing faction of activists is question ing the effectiveness of these short-term stints. These development IB activists are asking for !||i| a smarter approach to international aid. Boniface Mwangi, a Kenyan photojournal- HH ist and activist, recently addressed a group of Duke University students considering vol unteering overseas. WTien asked why they wanted to travel thousands of miles to volunteer, most answered, in some form, that they saw the greatest need there. Mwan- gi’s response was biting: “My concern is that as you try to save the world you are neglecting issues at home.” For most college students, however, this bite-size humanitarianism is too easy an equation to ignore: a little time in a suffering com munity grants a lot of moral reward and cultural under standing. But the real challenge presents itself when these voluntourists set out to achieve what they claim is their principal objective — to help those in need. Simply, how much can col lege students with little to no health or construction skills accomplish in a week or two? The answer for most people is probably very little. Unskilled workers are not the only problem, either. Your Facebook timelines, Instagram feeds and mail boxes are probably already ggiil inundated with fundraising requests for these voluntours. Today I got an email from a good friend detailing his opportunity this coming summer to work as a camp counselor in Lusaka, Zambia. It asked that I give just $45 a month to send one of his camp kids to school. The cheapest flight I can find to Lusaka costs $2,000 — or the price of sending 45 kids to school for a month. To make the long-lasting impact that voluntourism hopes for, we need to pivot our strategy toward a more local and enduring solution. People in the communities not only understand their problems better than we ever could, but can also affect more change by the simple advantage of more time. Why not use the money that would otherwise be spent traveling to Africa or South America to hire a local, better-skilled carpenter to do the same? It’s not only cheaper, but more efficient and helps the community build their own market. Of course there is some thing to be said about the ” r 91 Shelby Knowles —THE BATTALION human element of volun tours. There is an honest and legitimate draw to spending one or two weeks connect ing with suffering communi ties that I do not doubt, but in the end that’s it — one or two weeks. The adventure will always end; there will always be a plane to catch back to reality. The true test of effective ness in development is what happens after the workers go home. There are stories around the aid community alleging that in some places the houses constructed by voluntourists have to be torn down and rebuilt brick by brick due to unskilled construction. And in a way that is what we need to do ourselves — tear voluntourism down and rebuild it, brick by brick. There is a great energy of humanitarianism in our stu dent body that wants to help those in need — there just needs to be a more effective way to do that. Spencer Davis is a finance sophomore and news reporter for The Battalion. -ades * Concerts * ^arrivaL & Ci afts * food Vendors Street Entertainment .MKscxweJRk'sesurcIri ii.c FACIAL ACNE IZtSSi Mark Dor£, Editor in Chief MARBI6BAS Wmi ■ A visit, its online for tt complete list of entertainment Downtown Port Arthur miucUgTiUs.port.iuTlmr.eoin iSK.8717 Individuals, 12 to 40 years of age with facial acne • • Up to $300 paid to qualified participants for time & travel • TV ' Tb % O i'S.cover daily, the fall ' and ssion and spring semesters Thursday during the (except University holidays and exam periods) at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. Offices are in Suite >n, TX 77843. Offices ; of the Memorial Student Center. ■o Jf " Sfl L400 Mews F/ie Battalion news depart ment is managed by students at Texas rsity in Student Media, a unit Msion of Student Affairs. 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