2008 Woodie Awards
Starting to feel the heat
Muhlenberg Weekly Executive Board
Issue date: 10/25/07 Section: Op/Ed
- Page 1 of 1
During our time working at The Weekly, we have used student apathy and a lack of student dedication to fuel many editorials. While this continues to be a big problem at the College, there is another side to this argument. What does the College provide for its dedicated and responsible student leaders? Over the course of the past few weeks there have been a few highly valued leaders threatening to resign and others dreading to complete their weekly obligations to their organizations on top of an already heavy course load. Dinners at the President's House are great and a loaded resume is even better, but what about a clean and healthy working environment?
Our staff of dedicated students sacrifice free time, sleep and sometimes even grades to make the paper look and read as good as it can when it hits the stands in Seegers on Thursday mornings. Why are we spending countless hours in an unventilated, moldy office every Tuesday night?
After bringing this problem to the attention of Plant Operations, their solution was to give us a dehumidifier, which is fine, except for the fact that is releases steam, making the already unbearable office situation even worse. As three involved students we do not need to be adding "stop down to the office to empty the dehumidifer" to our daily to-do lists.
While we understand that Dick Begbey and the team of Plant Operations workers behind him are stretched thin, the addition of a dehumidifier to the office was not an acceptable solution to the situation.
While we're hoping to be relocated to Seegers Union with Phase II of the renovations in the works, we need something to be done about this, now. We're not asking for a state of the art, brand new office, we're simply asking for a healthy and comfortable environment where we can work. As the end of the year is approaching, we've been receiving an endless amount of surveys about the newspaper. Most ask how much our editors are paid, and the answer is…ZERO. We're not looking for monetary compensation or a pass out of Wednesday classes, although that would be nice, we're simply looking for some respect as students running a business.
We strive to make the paper better each week, but wonder how much longer we can continue to work under these conditions. We're forced to think about why we continue to sit in the heat and sweat for hours on end when we receive nothing but a few words to put on a resume in return. We would like to hope that we see some change in the near future before we are forced to re-evaluate our positions as unappreciated student leaders.
Our staff of dedicated students sacrifice free time, sleep and sometimes even grades to make the paper look and read as good as it can when it hits the stands in Seegers on Thursday mornings. Why are we spending countless hours in an unventilated, moldy office every Tuesday night?
After bringing this problem to the attention of Plant Operations, their solution was to give us a dehumidifier, which is fine, except for the fact that is releases steam, making the already unbearable office situation even worse. As three involved students we do not need to be adding "stop down to the office to empty the dehumidifer" to our daily to-do lists.
While we understand that Dick Begbey and the team of Plant Operations workers behind him are stretched thin, the addition of a dehumidifier to the office was not an acceptable solution to the situation.
While we're hoping to be relocated to Seegers Union with Phase II of the renovations in the works, we need something to be done about this, now. We're not asking for a state of the art, brand new office, we're simply asking for a healthy and comfortable environment where we can work. As the end of the year is approaching, we've been receiving an endless amount of surveys about the newspaper. Most ask how much our editors are paid, and the answer is…ZERO. We're not looking for monetary compensation or a pass out of Wednesday classes, although that would be nice, we're simply looking for some respect as students running a business.
We strive to make the paper better each week, but wonder how much longer we can continue to work under these conditions. We're forced to think about why we continue to sit in the heat and sweat for hours on end when we receive nothing but a few words to put on a resume in return. We would like to hope that we see some change in the near future before we are forced to re-evaluate our positions as unappreciated student leaders.