OPINIONS

I was expecting some sort of town hall meeting. But when I walked in, I found tables covered in giant blank pieces of paper, markers in various colors, and lollipops.

“I feel like I’m in preschool again,” commented Ray Loftin as I took a seat beside the executive board member of FAU’s chapter of the American Criminal Justice Association, an academic fraternity.

Loftin and I, along with 14 other student leaders, had shown up in the Student Union’s Majestic Palm Room for a Vision Café on Nov. 3. According to the e-mail invitation we received, the purpose of the event, one in an ongoing series that started with faculty and staff in spring 2009, was to allow student leaders to “share opinions and ideas” about improving FAU. The only thing is, few students were invited and none received much notice.

The Nov. 3 Vision Café revolved around the theme of diversity. Each table of students was asked to answer three questions via conversation or note-taking in marker — or at least suck with uncertainty at lollipops that matched our markers. The questions, essentially, read:

– How is FAU diverse?

– How could FAU be more diverse?

– How should FAU market its diversity to outsiders?

Past themes have included communication, yet an e-mail invitation written by Student Government Interim Director Heather Bishara and sent only to employees of Student Government and student media outlets did not reach my inbox until Nov. 2 at 4:54 p.m.

Consequently, multiple attendees confessed that they showed up only because they were encouraged by a superior. In fact, poor attendance seems an ongoing issue for the Vision Café forum series.

“We had one scheduled a couple weeks ago. Nobody came,” admitted Kristen Murtaugh, FAU’s VP for strategic planning and one of two administrators who led the forum on Nov. 3.

Perhaps not surprisingly, at least three out of the four Student Government leaders in attendance confessed that they showed up only after Bishara or Murtaugh broached the subject to them on the day of the event.

Bishara had made a point of contacting these leaders herself, however.

“Sometimes the personal touch of calling makes the difference,” she explained.

But regardless of how they heard about the event or why they attended, most students seemed glad they went. Several, such as freshman Dean Hasan, even stated that they would attend future Vision Cafés.

“I like how our voices can be heard, how they can be voiced on behalf of the campus,” explained the public information officer for the student body’s House of Representatives.

I agree with Hasan: I was honestly flattered and impressed that the FAU administration thought to bother to ask students themselves how the university could better itself. I just wished they’d asked more of us.

And asked better questions. At the third table I sat down at (with each new question asked, we switched tables as if playing musical chairs), the discussion was the least productive. Once I realized FAU was asking me not how to better the university for the sake of its own community but how to market itself to outsiders, I got the sense that FAU didn’t care about me as much.

So, I and three intelligent members of the House of Representatives unintelligibly giggled our way through the third round of discussion as we sucked away at our lollipops to avoid the insulting question.

The students who attended this Vision Café were told that the thoughts we voiced that evening would be submitted in the form of a report to the Board of Trustees, FAU’s highest-ranking administrative decision-makers. Assuming this actually happens and the Board actually applies our suggestions, approaches like Vision Cafés could play a key role in improving and expanding FAU.

But until Vision Cafés allow more members of the university community to speak up without markers appropriate for a preschool setting, until the forums are no longer limited to select participants, FAU’s voice will never be diverse.

As Secretary of the House of Representatives James Shackelford commented about the Nov. 3 event, “It was a shame we had 16 people — do 16 people speak for 28,000?”