A story about a school a little bit like ours

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY ABOUT A SCHOOL. THE school was large and had many distinguished students and professors. The school also had a pretty good baseball team. On the other hand, barely had a library, because it was under construction. “How long does it take to build a library?â€Â you might wonder. Well, the answer is this: at least three years. Sometimes students complained about not having books, but it was okay.

One of the other things the school did have, though, was a mascot. The school̢۪s mascot, much like ours, was a Bulldog, but not a mean one. This one was a nice, humble sort of character, whose gentle smile proved a comfort to many within the school̢۪s community.

Then, one summer, some administrators in the athletic department decided the Bulldog was not Bulldog enough, because it was kind of frumpy and a little too friendly. They wanted one that would be kind of like a yuppie version of the old one — more attractive and with nicer clothes. Also, they needed a new suit because the old was not safe enough. Instead of making the old suit safer and more comfortable, they made a new one altogether.

They thought this would be good because now, instead of having a mascot that children would want to hug and take photographs with, they could have one that would not look out of place at a health spa.

This was a pretty good plan, except it turned out nobody liked him.

Despite his attractive face and nicer clothes, the students said he was ugly. Despite his more muscular build, the students said he looked like a pansy.

Even with all this complaining, the athletic administration decided to stand by the new model and didn̢۪t really acknowledge the fact that everybody hated the new mascot, at least for a while.

Later in the year, students were still complaining about having no library because, like I said, it takes at least three years to build a library. Many students eventually gave up on books entirely.

Then, the school decided that the athletic department needed more money. At the same time, all the rest of the departments in the school also needed money. This included the department for students studying Biology. It included the department for students studying agriculture, engineering, mathematics, English, art and business. It even included students studying interior design. Since all these departments needed money, the administration decided that they would increase fees for the athletic department and all the other departments too.

Initially, they wanted to make students pay according to the following formula: for every $5 that would go to athletics, $2 would go to a fund to be shared by every other department in the school. Even though the athletic department was getting 2.5 times more money than all the other departments combined, the administration decided to give the increase a name that would make people think that the primary beneficiary of the fee increase would be all the other departments.

Some people didn̢۪t think it was fair because the administration had made another decision without any kind of consensus from the students.

After some nagging, the student government convinced the administration to let students vote on a non-binding version of the fee change, mostly because they felt bad about the students not having a library, because that sort of thing takes three years.

Many people still thought this was not fair, and because some people thought they should be able to vote on the fee increases separately, the students rejected the change, with 65 percent of voters saying “no, I don’t think paying this extra money is such a good idea for us.â€Â

Still, because the vote was non-binding, the school̢۪s administration decided to lower that fee by $18, but made the students pay it anyway.

And then, in a surprise announcement, the athletic administration decided to let students and the community vote on which mascot they liked better: the old one or the new one.

As might have been expected, the students and community chose the old mascot, and finally finally finally the school gave them something back that they wanted, something that they had asked for.

They did this to try and make the students feel better about how the administration had ignored them before, and about not having a library.

They did this to make the community think that they hadn̢۪t forgotten who schools are for.
Sound familiar?