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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.
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