Student Leadership Representatives
We are writing to address JuicyCampus.com and its consequence to our campus community. First, we wish to express our collective disapproval and disappointment with JuicyCampus. As leaders of student government and the Greek community we want to encourage the UR student body to act with respect for others. The University of Richmond student is held to a high standard of integrity and trust and because of this standard we each must act in ways that respect our neighbor, our classmate, our professor and ourselves. We have an opportunity to reject the negativity this site has put on our campus community and move forward.
As representatives of the student body, we’ve taken measures to ensure that the safety and integrity of our university remain strong. We’ve heard from some members of the university community requesting that JuicyCampus.com be blocked from our on-campus network. While we agree that a site so hateful in purpose should not exist on our campus we must recognize the implications of our actions in our greater effort to improve our campus community. After much research and conference with our student government colleagues from Colby to Pepperdine to Vanderbilt, we’ve come to realize that a simple “block” on the site doesn’t create the change we need. One student government president explained that Juicy Campus is an opportunity for a “change of culture” rather than a “change of policy.” In addition, we MUST remember the internet world we live in. If we block JuicyCampus.com then we will have version 2, 3 and 4…Instead, we have an opportunity to reject a culture of rumor and act in ways that we can be proud.
As college students, we have a relationship with technology that not many understand. We’ve grown up with technology as a part of our lives, and because of that, we oftentimes forget the person sitting at the other end of our wireless connection. As men and women of the University of Richmond, this is a chance to take ownership of our thoughts and our words. Writing without consequence is not honorable and we cannot continue to support the behavior we all denounce.
Thank you to those students who have expressed concern with this site. Please continue to contact us with your concerns as we move forward.
With respect for one another,
Generra Peck, WCGA President
Matt Whittaker, RCSGA President
Elizabeth Barry, Panhellenic President
David McCormick, IFC President
Lisa Sinkovitz, JSGA President
Connor Close, RSB SGA President
Nov. 20, 2008
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Let’s be serious about this. There is nothing good that can come out of acknowledging this web site publicly. In fact, by doing so, the student leaders have given not only undeserved attention, but even money to the web site.
Really?!? Yes, really. If you go to that website you will see banners all over it. They are there for a reason - they monetize the web site. More traffic means more clicking on the banners. More clicking on the banners means more money for its creators. Thus by continuing to acknowledge it they have undoubtedly brought more traffic and money to it. If they were to say “a web site” and had been a little more discreet about it, this wouldn’t have been an issue.
Anyways, the point of that site is to make money. That’s it. Nothing constructive can come out of it, because it wasn’t intended for any substantial dialogue. Those who write hateful things on there have nothing better to do.
This goes back to what was said in an online response last week in “The Collegian.” There must be another kind of outlet for the students, the purpose of which will be to gather their opinion. Instead of promoting pointless web-sites, why not initiate a web site where transparency and real dialogue are valued.
Cmmon’ how hard is that?
Take a good domain name, for example, “spideropinion.com.” It’s not taken.
A simple forum would do - it would take less effort.
Make a system where each student can use their ID to make an account (of course, this process has to be supervised in order to insure that the system is not manipulated.)
Concentrate your efforts on this web site, and not on pointless e-mails and other money-making web-sites. This means mass e-mails, banners, etc.
Involve the student leaders, governments, etc with incorporating it into their discussions and agendas.
When all of this is done, people can say “there, we have a bunch of anonymous imbeciles writing in (insert name).com” BUT “we, also have spirderopinion.com where those who truly want to make a difference legitimize themselves and share their constructive opinion.”
In order for such thing to happen, however, we would need the administration to participate actively. The alumni could also serve a role in this project. THIS is a positive change towards something with more substance. THIS would be an example of countering all the negativity that has been overly-exposed, by showing that it does not represent the whole campus. THIS also took me 5 minutes to write and it would probably take about a month to actually do it.