STAFF EDIT: Bringing BU back to ‘One’

That last football game wasn’t a nail-biter. Spring Fling wasn’t one for the books, and the recent university-wide sit-in did nothing to inspire.

At Boston University, campus pride and collectivity often amount to bumping into a virtually unknown floormate and sending his or her cup of coffee to the ground. BU is a two-mile stretch of apathy, detachment and couldn’t-care-less mantra, and its less-than-desirable retention rate is a definite reflection of just how easy it is to slip through the cracks. But the university’s recent One BU Task Force Report and corresponding plan of academic integration could serve as the stepping stones to a more inclusive campus atmosphere, and one that could keep freshmen content with where they’re at and on-track toward a diploma in Scarlet.

The task force behind “One BU” began its mission in 2008 to “unlock” undergraduate education, according to the plan’s report. Its most important goal, though, is its aim to unify the sum of the school’s parts across campus. Trying to decipher the necessary requirements to complete a minor outside of a student’s own school, for example, can often require a magnifying glass and a worldly interpreter.

Uniting the fractured and jagged pieces of BU’s scattered puzzle can only yield positive results. Each school is independent from the next and carries its own academic philosophy, but the students in each are still generally here for the same reasons. Recommending that academic credit result from programs like the First-Year Student Outreach Project &-&- which accepts students from each school and college across campus as volunteers and staff members &-&- is one solid idea to unify students and get them acquainted with civic responsibility (two of the report’s goals.) Integrating classes further into BU’s and Boston’s communities will function as a strong solvent to feelings of alienation &-&- the College of Arts and Sciences is huge and encourages sociable behavior, but how many students outside of the tiny School of Education know anything about those who take classes inside it?

In the case of BU’s disengaging from itself: It is what it is. The university can’t help the fact that it has little green space and no football team or tailgating game plan. What it can do is be cognizant of the unique campus it has to work with and respond with unique opportunities for collaboration among students. The enactment of recommendations that start with academic inclusiveness could lead to more general feelings of unity across all levels of campus life. With this in mind and conviction in the plan’s execution, “One BU” could offer enticing bait for integration. But it can’t be held firmly responsible if students don’t bite.

Editor’s note: Look for detailed coverage of all recommendations in the Task Force Report every day for the next two weeks in The Daily Free Press.