Charlotte, what else do you want?

From the very first day I arrived at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, I  was struck by the lack of pride taken in this institution as a whole. I am not merely referring to a lack of pride by the student body, I am referring to much of the faculty and the surrounding community. Students don’t seem to care where they go, faculty often wear appearal of rivals while teaching class with almost no resistance, and the care taken by the Charlotte Observer to promote UNCC as well as retailers failing to promote this university is pathetic!

Frankly, I do not understand how people can be so blind as to not be able to realize what this university currently offers as well as the great things the future has in store. We have the fastest growing university in the state of North Carolina, our athletic program is very respectable and is coming up extremely quick, we have vasts resources and an abundance of great professors, and not to mention we are located in a beautiful city that has it all. The location of our university alone should be something all students and staff should take some pride in. For business majors especially, you are in a goldmine of nearby corporate headquarters that eagerly wait to hire UNC Charlotte grads. Did you know that Charlotte is the 3rd largest banking city in the world and the 2nd largest in the U.S.? Do you all realize what kind of networking power you have at your finger tips? People, this place is a diamond in the rough!

I look around and see my peers wearing the apparel of other colleges on the UNCC campus and it really rubs me the wrong way. As a member of this university, you should be a Charlotte fan first and then a fan of other teams if you chose. Our athletes are out there busting it every single day, practicing several hours before you even wake each morning to make our school look better. Give them respect! I’m not sure if any of you have been to any other universities in this country but I’ll tell you this, if I were to wear a rival school’s appearal at any ACC school, I wouldn’t be coming back unharmed. And don’t give me that crap about “well, ACC schools are so much more competitive in athletics.” If that is what you believe please come out to see some of our other teams other than just the basketball program (with all due respect to those athletes) and look at how many of our other sports have been destroying ACC teams for years. The golf team was ranked number 1 in the country last year. Should we not be proud of them? I know I am. Our university is young and it will take time to fully develop our athletic program. Take some pride in what we have now and have some foresight.

This complete apathy as a whole for such a wonderful university has gone on long enough. I feel it is time to take action with those who already love this school very much and the city that facilitates it. I plan on working very closely with the new student body president when he takes office in the Fall as well as many other UNCC leaders and staff members. All it will take is letting people see what we see. There are a good number of people at this unversity that have the same vision of what the future holds for Charlotte and are extremely excited about the things to come. UNC Charlotte, it is time to share our vision!

RGM

Dust in the wind

Reading back over the last several posts, I realized that I was conveying a little too much criticism of those who don’t think quite like I do. I always keep my mind open and I am always thinking. I like to challenge those around me to think outside of the small, stuffy box that the social mechanism tends to place us in. So, before I get into this post I want everyone who reads this blog to know that I appreciate all the feedback, support, and your continuing readership. I doubt that I actually offended anyone, but I was out of harmony with my own wavelength by writing that basically if you do not think in a way which I consider open, you are wrong and what not. Just don’t be afraid to expand your mind to possibilities is all I am saying. And this leads me into the meat of this post.

I think one of my greatest attributes is my need to always be thinking. This also tends to be my greatest downfall because while I tend to try to stay two steps ahead and analyze absolutely everything, I often become so wrapped up in my thoughts that I can become absent minded. Doctors would most likely diagnose me with ADD, like every other person of my generation, simply because I may be concentrating on something and get so lost in my thoughts, then *POOF* there goes an entire lecture class. What did my professor just say?! I was too busy thinking about how I can use the cost allocation my accounting teacher is talking about in order to reduce the amount of taxes my company would pay if I were a business owner to actually hear this portion of lecture. It happens all the time and I have to work very hard to restrain from creating my own lesson which may not follow the bulleted syllabus.

Something I really began to think about while I was at the grocery store a few days ago was how humans tend to think on such a small scale. I do it myself most of the time so I’m not claiming I am immune to it by any means. For example, we rarely think on a much broader scale than ourselves, our families and social circles. While I was in Food Lion, I would pass people and think about how each person has such a rich history and so many different elements to their lives. They all have problems, dreams, ambitions, and things they love very much just like everyone else. No matter how exciting or boring you think your life is, everyone has at least one thing that is interesting about them. We all are connected to much larger things that we simply don’t think about. Sure, we may consider what our politicians are telling us and how it affects our country, but we don’t really think about the 6 billion others just on this planet and how they are living, much less an infinitely large universe.

We occasionally think about genocide or food shortages with a “how sad” sigh and go on about our business. If it doesn’t directly affect us as a whole, we really don’t care too much. Only when it happens to you do most actually take a serious concern. Rarely, do we choose to think about the earth that has sustained us for so many years, but such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things, when we try to think big picture. Our concerns are not with the natural world that has been here longer than us and will most likely be here longer than us if we don’t completely destroy it before we either have to congregate elsewhere or destroy our own kind. Why are we fighting with our brothers when we could be so much more efficient by working together? War is part of human nature. But why? Why do we really need it? Why can’t humans evolve to a point where greed and lust for land and resources are obsolete? What would happen if borders no longer existed and we all respected our fellow human-being? What if markets were really free and countries didn’t need to shut others out? What if we all really had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? How long will it be until humans will come to a fork in the road where we must choose between evolution and reverting to primitive emotions of hate? It will happen sometime, and right now it’s not looking too hot.

What are we afraid of? Why do you care if someone shares a different religious view than yourself if they in-turn respect your own? Why should the properties of light when it reflects on human skin matter? How does color define identity?  Why is there a need to ever put a person down? Why is it that we can come together and see our common interests when something bad happens, yet when things are going well we continue to alienate others and keep those different from us from succeeding? From simply striving to be happy like we all want to do? Why do we have to blame others and never take responsibility for our own actions? Most of the time our own actions are a direct correlation with outcome. Where does the human compulsion to be superior to all living things come from? Why do we think we know whats best for everything when we are such a young species? Why must we complicate everything? Maybe we are the butt of the joke within a living ecosystem that knows all and doesn’t have to question it’s existence, but we can’t understand that the answers are all here.

A long series of questions with no answers at the moment.

RGM