Trois

1.) With so many gadgets, including people, vying for our attention, where is human communication headed, especially at an institute of supposed higher learning of all places?

Imagine the 1960s. The image of WSU doesn’t consist of Ipods, cellular phones, computers, blackberries, et other devices competing for our love. Today each is unavoidable on any college campus, even the quiet isolated town of Pullman. Who then is losing out on our love? What impact, if any do these new technologies have on seemingly outdated human behavior?

What is on the horizon in terms of technology? Will traditional forms of communication someday be wiped out? Okay maybe that’s extreme but you can’t tell me you’re not annoyed or mildly interested when you see throngs of collegians walking up and down the mall with some sort of device?

2.) Any homeowner takes their living room for granted. It is just there and it doesn’t plan on moving without permission. Just two years ago, I remember what a living room was like. Then like a rug, it was lifted from under this collective community, and all future cougar cubs.

Students have never formally been asked about this decision to renovate the CUB. Do students notice the big hole in the house? How do they feel about it? Who made the decision? When new students or even veteran students walk through the mall, what are they to think of the fences and construction? Are they not paying the same money previous students have paid to have access to the same living room? How does the increase in student enrollment compare with the renovation?

I will explain to readers how WSU came to decide there would be a CUB renovation. Additionally, I will talk about student life and what it is like to have the heart of the campus cut out during their tenure.

3.) Bob Dylan and John Lennon, amongst others, captivated a whole generation of young people. Almost 45 years later, there is no voice of the people, musically speaking.

Today, students have no common voice to rally to. What has happened in the years since the 1960s when student activism and music were united? With the political climate as high as it is now, it seems appropriate now more than ever that universities should be centers of musical and student activism. College is historically and supposedly a time for higher learning.

So why is this not the case today? I will address the question of music and its absence to activism. I may approach scholars of music or politics. I may ask students how music impacts their political views at all or if it even has a place in politics like it had in the 1960s.