Campus needs more ways to promote spirit: ASUPS should make efforts to unite students in Logger pride

The energy and spirit felt in the fieldhouse while our women’s basketball team hosted the first round of the Northwest Conference Tournament against Whitworth University was amazing. It was one of the few times in my two years here that I felt like the student body united over a single event. On that night, it seemed that everyone was proud to be a Logger.

In the past few weeks since that win, I’ve spoken with several students regarding the lack of campus-wide events, and the overall “cliquey” culture at our school. The overwhelming consensus was yes—we are a pretty divided campus, and there seems to be little that unifies the entire student body.

Even Marc Fagaragan, our ASUPS Vice President, commented that while we all feel that Puget Sound is home, it isn’t necessarily a unified one.

“Sometimes I feel like instead of saying ‘once a Logger, always a Logger,’ it should be ‘once a Logger, always a Logger, maybe sometimes, maybe never,’” Fagaragan said.

It is not difficult to understand how this culture was born; with so many fun, new, interesting things to try at this school­—bee keeping, a radio show, Greek life, slack lining and kendamaing or a new sport such as crew or rugby, to name a few—how could we not naturally self-segregate as people become engrossed in what they are passionate about, and as a result, the other students who share the same passions?

In fact, this is likely a great attraction for many students to this school. The diverse yet inclusive student body allows people to feel welcomed to branch out and try something new.

But at the same time, I believe there is something lacking, and it’s moments like the immense crowd roar after the women solidified their win against Whitworth that remind us of what we are missing.

“I came from a very spirited high school, and it was tough to come to college and have [this kind of] crowd at sports games and concerts,” sophomore Hunter Ware said. Ware approached the issue from many angles.

“Puget Sound students are busy, which makes it difficult to coordinate and for people to prioritize. We also don’t have the budget that big state schools have to bring in big-name acts [for concerts] or even the sheer number of students to have a huge crowd at any event like that,” Ware said.

We seem to breed a culture that believes that not going to campus events is cooler than actually going to them.

“People always make excuses not to go, when they could take measures so that they could go,” Ware said.

Take for example the Blue Scholars concert last fall.

Despite savvy advertisement efforts, ASUPS was unable to sell all of the available tickets, and the concert ended up lacking energy and it felt awkward with such a small group of students trying to fill the large space of Marshall Hall. There are countless other events with the intention of catering to the entire student body that had the same result.

Fagaragan spoke from an organizer’s perspective.

“It’s difficult for everyone to rally behind a speaker, performer or sport. Like with anything, there will always be people who aren’t pleased with an event,” Fagaragan said. The intent is to reach as many students as possible.

I think ASUPS and other organizations have made great efforts to put on events that unite the student body, but I believe that we have the ability to do more.

I propose that we post home game schedules on our bulletin boards and other common places that students look at on a daily basis, and that we consolidate our ASUPS programming budget for concerts to one big concert per year that everybody can look forward to.