2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
It's 'homecoming' every weekend
The Voice of the Observer
Issue date: 10/1/07 Section: Observations
- Page 1 of 1
This past weekend, Rutgers-Newark held their traditional Homecoming weekend, with invites doled out to the President of the campus Richard L. McCormick, R-N alumni, and current students...to stay around campus rather than running to ramp, like the majority of students do each weekend.
Every weekend is a homecoming for this primarily commuter-based campus. Most of the dormers head home too.
Come each Thursday, after the frats let out and the closing time bell is rang at McGovern's, the town goes cold.
The only ones on the street are vagrants, church-goers, and a few stragglers.
Yet as your drive into Newark, there's a billboard stating that Newark is one of New Jersey's most dynamic college towns.
How did they figure?
Newark may have nearly 50,000 students over several surrounding campuses, but it's anything BUT dynamic on any given weekend unless a school or student organization plays music and sets up inflatable play things as bait.
And it tends to work on a few, but nowhere near dynamic status.
Mass transit shuttles students out, that could be contributing the town's economy.
New Jersey Institute for Technology (NJIT) is spookily silent on weekends, with the exception of a pick-up cricket match or a tennis match...because there's not a lot to do. And if there is, it's not being effectively marketed to the students, either by 'fun factor' or the financial aspect.
So why is it, if there's so many students per square mile, that there aren't a lot of local businesses around to cater to the student population- ones that don't involve food? Where is the entertainment? And we're not just talking about the game room on the third floor of Robeson. Why aren't there 24-hour joints where you need a student ID to enter? Why aren't there
Many students complain that there's a loss of cameraderie when their classmates head home for the weekend, but what are 50,000 students supposed to do besides synchronized thumb twidling?
How dynamic.
Every weekend is a homecoming for this primarily commuter-based campus. Most of the dormers head home too.
Come each Thursday, after the frats let out and the closing time bell is rang at McGovern's, the town goes cold.
The only ones on the street are vagrants, church-goers, and a few stragglers.
Yet as your drive into Newark, there's a billboard stating that Newark is one of New Jersey's most dynamic college towns.
How did they figure?
Newark may have nearly 50,000 students over several surrounding campuses, but it's anything BUT dynamic on any given weekend unless a school or student organization plays music and sets up inflatable play things as bait.
And it tends to work on a few, but nowhere near dynamic status.
Mass transit shuttles students out, that could be contributing the town's economy.
New Jersey Institute for Technology (NJIT) is spookily silent on weekends, with the exception of a pick-up cricket match or a tennis match...because there's not a lot to do. And if there is, it's not being effectively marketed to the students, either by 'fun factor' or the financial aspect.
So why is it, if there's so many students per square mile, that there aren't a lot of local businesses around to cater to the student population- ones that don't involve food? Where is the entertainment? And we're not just talking about the game room on the third floor of Robeson. Why aren't there 24-hour joints where you need a student ID to enter? Why aren't there
Many students complain that there's a loss of cameraderie when their classmates head home for the weekend, but what are 50,000 students supposed to do besides synchronized thumb twidling?
How dynamic.
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