Rutgers is falling apart. Its appearance is at least. Trash is strewn on the sides of the road, guys urinate on the bushes outside of frat houses and mountains of cigarette butts are everywhere. Walk into any lecture hall, and you see broken seats and missing desks. Some classrooms have no chalk, and others have no erasers. I commend the professors who continue to teach in these conditions. Rutgers offers an excellent education, if everyone can get up the will to have a positive learning experience. But when classrooms have the air conditioning blowing in the middle of winter or inexplicably have 90-degree temperatures the next day, no one is in the mood to learn. Having the proper environment for learning is critical for education. When the classrooms and campus are in poor condition, students lose their motivation to even show up to classes. How did Rutgers get this way?
I visited Princeton University a few months ago to visit a friend, and I was shocked at what I saw there. I saw a beautiful campus with well-kept lawns and spotless buildings. I couldn't believe my eyes. The idea of having such a spotless campus hurt my head so much that I needed a smoke. As I puffed away on my cancer stick, I looked around for cigarette butts on the ground. None. No one was even smoking on the campus, and people, smelling my menthol, gave me angry looks as they walked by. I was finishing up my smoke when I faced a conundrum that I had never had to face before. What should I do with my butt? Cigarette butt, that is. I saw a smoker's oasis about 100 feet away where I could properly dispose of the cigarette, or I could flick it onto the perfectly manicured lawns. I gave in to the environment around me and walked those 100 feet. That made me think: Why, if I always haphazardly throw away my finished cigarettes, did I pause this time?
How did we end up with such a difference between these institutions? Some say that the reason is lack of funding. Princeton has a huge endowment and can afford to clean constantly, while Rutgers just took a multi-million dollar hit in state funding. Others may say that the students at Rutgers are inherently more prone to debauchery than Princeton students. I say it's because people at Rutgers see other people at Rutgers not caring. The environment dictates what people do. This all reminded me of New York City and how it got cleaned up. New York went from one of the most dangerous cities in the United States to one of the safest in a span of about a decade. The most prevalent theory on how New York cut its crime and filth so dramatically was the broken windows theory. This theory essentially states that when people see that nothing is done about a small infraction, they are more likely to do it themselves. This leads to greater and greater infractions until it is out of control. If someone sees that a window is broken and it stays that way, that person assumes that no one cares about that building, so why should he or she?
Rutgers needs to crack down on the small things. Fix every seat in the lecture halls and beautify the campus. Keep on top of the maintenance. Have plain-clothes Rutgers police or community service officers walking around, writing up tickets - or worse - to anyone who litters. When people know they are being watched, they stop doing wrong things. Don't like getting tickets for littering? Then stop littering. Some may say that these small infractions are hardly worth enforcing, but enforcing the small things would have a ripple effect. If there is no trash in the streets, people are less likely to throw their own there.
Some may say that Rutgers doesn't have the money do these things, but I say Rutgers can't afford not to. The initial costs for cleaning up the campus could come from ticket revenues. The Rutgers Foundation could also have a special campaign to raise money for a campus beautification. Once the initial money is spent to clean and fix up the campus, people will become reluctant to go back to the way things were. With the beautified campus, students will have a better learning experience, and tours conducted on campus will inspire prospective students to come to Rutgers and increase the value of a Rutgers education.
I love Rutgers with all my heart, and it pains me to see the institution I love so much look like garbage. Yes, I'm advocating secret police and extreme measures. The ends justify the means. I want a beautiful campus where people want to learn. If students here have a problem with that, they can leave or get fined. Either way, it will help make Rutgers what it should be: the flagship university for the proud people of New Jersey.
Preston Saks is a Rutgers College junior majoring in political science. His column, Thought is free, runs on alternate Tuesdays. He welcomes feedback at prestonsaks@yahoo.com
