Put your mouth where your money is

So here you are. You’ve found yourself at Ryerson University whether it’s your first time or the 1000th time on this campus.

Regardless of how long you’ve been a part of Ryerson, this is your community for the foreseeable future — a second home for the next couple years or more than that. A cozy downtown home bonded by the shocking cost of being a student that we all suffer through together.

For many people who go to school here, the Ryerson community can be hard to connect with — I was definitely one of these people during my first year. It’s not easy to be a commuter who travels over an hour to get here and be expected to also be involved with student events, politics and keeping up your grades. Oh, and also have a life.

I can’t say I even cared all that much in the beginning. It’s far. There’s almost never enough space to call your own. You aren’t making friends easily in the big lectures. I hadn’t found a sense of belonging here. I was happy to just pay my tuition, keep my head down and get that piece of paper at the end of my four years.

The general sentiment from a lot of students seems to be I’m leaving this place in a few years, why would I care about anything that’s happening here anyway?

Four years later, here I am graduated, sitting in front of my screen thinking of how I can convince you to give as many shits as you can about the wild, vibrant community you are surrounded by—you’re paying for it after all.

My job for the next year is to run this newspaper. We’re all going to be informing you about your community. We’re a service that you pay for, and you should take advantage of each editor to fully utilize this service. Talk to us, ask us questions, tell us your concerns. Let us show you where your money is going and let us try to make you care about it.

In that sense, we’re not just a campus paper, we are your community news. This doesn’t mean it’s always going to be good news, we’re going to get angry people in our office and online as always. But honestly, even if you’re angry, I’m happy that you’re at least paying attention.

This microcosm that we’re occupying is far more than what it is at face value. The problems we face, the successes we reach—they’re all mirrors on a small scale of what’s happening in the rest of the country. Our job is to uncode the nonsense and tell you in plain English what’s going on and why you should care.

Our community is small, it needs protection, but it mostly needs people to always work at making it better. It’s hard to make our little universe run smoothly when no one is tending to it.

So as a last cry: Please try to give a shit about this city, this campus and the people in it. Pay attention to the politics, educate yourself, create opinions. Let us be your community paper, but we can’t run this thing without you there.

You should make each dollar count and have a say in where it’s going. You’re paying the big bucks after all.