The Commentator

Last week, YC Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Joanne Jacobson hosted a meeting for students to discuss the Yeshiva College curriculum review. At the beginning of the meeting, Dean Jacobson attributed the poor attendance to the 8 PM start time. There were five students. A half-hour into the discussion, there were ten (and one of them was an alumnus). How could be that, with so many students genuinely concerned with the direction and the types of courses offered in the College, none of them could spare the time to show up to the meeting? Perhaps, for many students, night seder got in the way. Perhaps some students were preparing for exams that night while others were working in the science labs. Yet, while commitments like these are legitimate, they do not serve to exempt YC students from the responsibility they have to themselves and future students of the college.

Some students attend classes late into the night, but many finish their daily classes a bit after 6 PM. For the opportunity to discuss the future of YU secular courses for next decade, it would have made sense for night seder-committed students to begin their nightly Torah study immediately following their classes, to allow themselves the time to attend the meeting. However, at seven o'clock, there were eight students poring over texts in the Main Beit Midrash, two in the Annex. The library was similarly bereft of student activity. Although it is possible that students were learning or studying in their dormitory rooms, it would appear more likely that this latest insult to the YC Administration's attempt to reach out to students is another sign of student apathy on the Wilf Campus.

What's worse, we fear that the apathy has shifted into a thicker lethargic atmosphere amongst the student body. It is not simply that students do not care about the curriculum review or other important issues on campus. If that were the case, we would find students involved in other activities or increased Torah activity in the beit midrash. Rather, they do not care about anything at all. They'd rather download a movie or television show and sit mindlessly in front of their computer screens, instead of participating, one way or another, in campus life. Considering all the bickering over the types of courses offered, we hoped you might care about the YC Curriculum Review. But now we have changed our expectation. Care about something. Anything at all.

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