Letter to the Editor

Dear Reader,

As a student who has found a great deal of success and happiness here at Muskingum I will say that my years here have been some of the best in my life. I have fallen in love with the campus, the school, its students and the atmosphere they have created. When I made the decision to continue my education, I was not looking for a place with nationally renowned academics, I was not looking for a school with a powerful athletics team, I was not looking for a school with wild parties, and I was not looking for a large big name institutional school. As an honors physics major at Purdue University I saw the toll that an elitist mentality took on a student body. I saw people’s value and worth determined by test scores and achievements. I saw students backstab one another to further their own career. I saw a student throw himself to his death during the pressure of exams and many more crack under pressure. I saw athletes held up on such a pedestal that many students caused permanent damage to their bodies trying to walk on at a school that only wanted to recruit. I saw a social hierarchy that praised a student’s ability to consume alcohol and engage in promiscuous activity. In a school of over thirty thousand students I saw students dehumanized to numbers rather than names, majors rather than personalities, and a price or value affixed to each student. These are problems that are common to many big name institutions.

At Muskingum these issues have been trivial ones when compared to a larger university. Muskingum offers something none of these schools have. Muskingum has a family. There is a stronger community here on this campus than any other place I have ever been. Rather than the typical wild drinking and antics found in other schools, students genuinely pursue activities and interests for their own sake rather than for resume building. This is a rare thing in this day and age. For the first time in my life I have been a name and a person. I have had a chance to participate in almost anything I could ever want to do and be involved on a level I doubt I could ever find at any other institution. During the happiest semester of my life I achieved a perfect GPA and rose to the top 5% of my class. I got to compete as a varsity athlete and a chance to spend a semester as an intern at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Washington DC. Most importantly I’ve found a safe place to grow and share in my faith. These have all been wonderful experiences that a wonderful family helped me grow. However, it seems that a lot of the community is changing.

I noticed that some things were changing when Amy Adams died last year. I’m sure things had started long before then, but it was a hard time for me. Amy and I had talked about raising a family for a long time and I was only moments from asking her to marry me when she fell. I watched her fall. I held her hand and told her I loved her as she lay writhing and moaning pain on the rocks. I tried to pull her shattered teeth from a broken jaw as she choked on them along with her own blood. I held her hand as it slowly went cold in the ICU. No man should ever have to endure what I endured that day. For weeks I woke up screaming in the night reliving the images forcefully burned into my mind so hard that I could not rightly remember her face before it was shattered on the rocks. I could barely think, I could barely function, yet… someone on the faculty that week decided to back out on the counselor’s decision to let me go home without taking my finals. Fortunately in the end, this decision was left to the teachers who knew me as a human being rather than a name on a paper. They showed great strength of character in doing so, and I still see many on the faculty as great individuals. They showed a commitment that went beyond a desire to cling to academic standards. They showed great character and love for another in the community.

This was a difficult time for me. It was not willpower, friends or community that carried me through those months. It was not books, wisdom, or learning that has allowed me to weather this storm and use it to grow. It was faith that carried me through. It was a faith that was grown and developed on this campus. It was a faith that found fertile soil in the very three houses that are now being given the axe. The BACCHUS House, the REAL House, and the Light House that have given myself and many others a safe place for comfort, fellowship, prayer, and enlightenment. I have always had a safe place to go where there were people who would accept me and not judge me. I knew there was a place where they would do this not only for me, but for any who walked through their doors. These are places that put on programs, provide services and make the campus an enjoyable place for those who don’t want to get inebriated on a Friday night. They are places that promote great character and love for others in the community.

It frightens me that these places are at the core of why Muskingum has meant so much to me, why it differs from other institutions, and may very well play a key roll in making the school a safer place. Is replacing them with another fraternity house and some privileged housing for seniors going to make this campus better? Hundreds of students, alumni and parents are rallying to try and stop this from happening. There is no “lack of interest”, all these organizations have full rosters and a strong turnout at most of their events. However, I get a sinking feeling that someone or some group seems to want to strike at everything that makes Muskingum a great school. I saw it on May fourth and it seems like I’m seeing it now in this decision to take out three houses that stand for Good on this campus.

Muskingum may never be like MIT in terms of academics, but unlike MIT we can certainly continue to avoid pushing academics so hard that people commit suicide or step on one another to achieve some worldly goal. Muskingum may never rival Ohio State as an athletic powerhouse, but unlike OSU we can certainly keep activities open to all that want to participate. No great achievement means anything if the recipient lacks the integrity and character to use it well. Muskingum has just that and though people in these three organizations make mistakes from time to time as we all do, myself and many others rely and need these organizations to simply make it day to day. I’m begging you, don’t let this happen… for the good of everyone.

With prayer, petition and much sincerity,

Benjamin Avery Pasley