Last week there was a great bustle getting ready for Homecoming, the alumni and planned festivities. But where’s our pride? I am not talking about Saluki Pride. I’m talking about the pride in ourselves and our surroundings. Sure, we can put thousands and even millions of dollars into refurbishing old buildings, landscaping and building new buildings, but are those for the students? Oh, but of course they are, but they are more for the people on the outside looking in.

Any day of the week you see groundspeople working diligently to make the grass and flowers attractive around the ballfields and areas that non-Saluki public frequent.

This place is gorgeous from the highway, from Shryock Auditorium and from other on-campus places frequently visited by the world.

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But when was the last time the alumni toured Thompson Woods? Not recently, obviously, and not in the near future either. That place is atrocious. Yes, this largely is the result of students being inconsiderate of wildlife and our surroundings.

This is my first semester at SIUC, and I walk through the woods everyday, and I truly don’t believe the trash cans there have been emptied yet. I have been watching daily to see if they ever get emptied. People should not be throwing down trash, but there should also not be any trash cans in the woods if we are not supposed to use them or if they are not ever going to be emptied. People go to great lengths to rally for the preservation of woods, habitat and animal welfare, so why aren’t we doing it in our own backyard?

There also is the defacement of the college. There is gang logo and graffiti everywhere. The whitewash finally was removed from the greenhouse because it had been so defaced. There is writing all over the walls of Faner Hall. If we have this so-called Saluki Pride in our school, why don’t we have the same pride in ourselves and our buildings?

junior, administration of justice