The University of Richmond Collegian 09/01/94

Staff Editorial

by Jeffrey Carl, Opinion Editor

What We Think

an Opinion from the Collegian Staff

“Brave New World”

Did you have a problem with the phone this week?

Maybe you had a problem with your cable.

Possibly a few of you are irritated at having to dial “9” before dialing anything else, like “911” for example.

There may even be somebody out there who had some problems registering or forgot to call up SpiderWeb and remind it that they were still coming to college, breathing, etc.

Hell with it, everybody did. There are some folks on campus who didn’t have any problems with any branch of the University’s new telecommunications setup. And both of you should be very happy.

So this is addressed to everyone else out there. Are you frustrated? Perplexed? Ready to take that second phone jack and shove it? The Collegian has a plan of action for everybody:

Suck it up and deal with it.

Seriously, though, we all probably had something to complain about sometime this week, but it’s a new system.

They’ll work the kinks out of it.

Everybody – and The Collegian will admit to its fair share of it – seems to complain about the lack of change, growth, and innovation at the University. Well, some of it is here. And I guess we can all bear with the bringers of change while they iron out the wrinkles in it.

And maybe people will think we're getting soft, but the possibility exists that a little toleration might well extend to a lot of the stuff that people will try to do this year that won't work out that well. Even the nearly-omniscient Collegian makes mistakes every few years or so.

Theodore Roosevelt said that "it is not the critic who counts..." It's easy to poke fun at everything that the school tries to do – or doesn't try to do. But maybe we can all try a little this year to give some credit where some credit is due. At least they're trying to make things better.

So maybe the telecommunications system won’t be all fixed by next time, and then we’ll hurl another barrage of heated invective against the registrar’s office, the administration in general, the State Department, Major League Baseball, et cetera. But until then we can give the powers that be who are trying to make things a little nicer just a little bit of credit.

But just a little.