Rider University - Shadow Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

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Cambodia-or-Bust peace fanatics who packed the gym that day to demand an end to hostilities? Immediately after the strike gained the support of the faculty and student body organizations, and when it was clear that final examinations would be largely abandoned, the campus lapsed back into the usual lackadaisical attit tude. The result was the affirmation of a tremendous dearth of sincerity on the part of the peace marchers of Rider College, even in the area wherein they claimed the greatest fortitudeg the cycle had been completed. Fietrospectively, there was really nothing unusual about this. A human being's basic nature dictates that he should hold his own interests in the highest of prior- ities. Despite the claims of our most liberal friends that the interests of the mass of people should be first on our minds, the occurrences of the last four years on this campus-with the famous moratorium as the most obvious example ibut let's not forget all the farcical class electionsi-indicate that no amount of ideology can change most people's reluctance to sacrifice time X N pl! X K - t 7 Q , i n IQ? I !Ll :li I ZEN I ' 5 t N xxx Nr, ': : :may W i i li l fp 9 A - ix I-::. if ik! I ' ll N iq .X N fl M :ag A Q I A N T V 'fl w ill W!-JK ff X Mit f Ni f ' V! 'f fa M X l 5' ft - K ff r X Xl 4437 XR ox .- ,vpn , . ,l f I WUWWW , f,4llllrQrv'l'lll,rielf1. M X 1 'Witl2fU-f55W1't fl l, f 2i5jd7w?gf7w'55 ffa-Wfff i ,. ff' X M l 111, ff Z 107

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Apathy Or Activism? by Ron Solomon Rider News editorial director To review political occurrences at Rider since 1967 is to observe a cyclic pattern of apathy-activism-apathy which has directed the actions, or lack of actions, of the majority of the student body. Apathy a trite catchword, but accurate never- theless has been the hallmark of students here as far as campus issues have been concerned since our freshman year and probably long before that. Except for small groups Ccliques if you willy who have run our student government, College Union Board and various ad hoc organizations, the level of student participation in matters that directly affect our campus lives has been low enough to discourage any of these leaders. A possible explanation for this lack of concern for college matters is immediately apparent: A large num- ber of youths today are too cosmopolitan in political ori- entation to be bothered by such trivialities. Concern over and involvement in, national and international po- litical issues is admirable-as long as the participants are able to keep their feet off other people's toes. But this apparently widespread and popular desire of so many students to change what they consider social and political injustices does not suffice to explain the lack of participation in matters which affect them even more directly. The campus is their home as is the world, and while they charge their country with international adventurism while more pressing problems persist at home, these students commit the same wrongs in mi- crocosm by Ietting their campus rot while they consider only bigger and better things. Even this deep, activi- stic interest in regard to the bigger picture is invariably short-lived, however, as witnessed by the unique show- case of the antiwar moratorium of 1970. What happened to the 1,500-odd, die-hard, Out-of- Ftider Has Seen Both

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