Visions

Visions

By Felicia Whatley

Managing Editor

In the Chancellor's speech he explained our visions our not our own. He gets his ideas from everyone around him. He made a joke about walking around campus was like constant drive-bys. People ask a lot from him.

He also said he likes when students challenge him. I think what he meant by wanting students to challenge him was in thoughts and ideas Well I am challenging him and asking the UMB community about a vision of mine.

I am challenging that our visions are our own. They are real. Some have been done before, but they are not the same to me as they are to another person.

If my vision or dream is not mine then why am I in college? I am here to listen and learn, but to formulate my own opinions on where I want to go in life and who I want to be. It is important to have role models good and bad to show you why you should and should not act that way. But my personal visions for my own future are mine.

They are ever changing with the economy, the job market, and how inspirational my professors are in my classrooms. I am a journalist. I would love to be working full time at a newspaper somewhere in the south, but no one is hiring. The best thing I can do for myself is what I am doing right now, staying in school working on a masters degree in some other marketable field.

When I was a little girl I wanted to be a ballerina. I ended up joining the Army reserve component instead. It seemed more noble, selfless, and challenging. I still think about how nice it would be to learn ballet, maybe someday for balance, for perspective.
It is still a dream of mine. I didn’t take that idea from anyone else or some television show.

One of my biggest visions right now is to figure out how to get a newer, bigger, brighter Veterans Centers on campus. Doing things the political way is so difficult, because there is always someone along the line that tries to shut you down.

Veterans are coming home from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and they have no common area to sit and vent PTSD issues, cry about missions, and laugh reminiscing the good times in semi-privacy.

I envision using the old refurbished space where the Wits End used to be, 3^rd Floor Wheatley, across from the DVC as half for the New Vet’s Center and the other half for the Disabled Community’s Club. We can mingle and share experiences together.

This is my own idea. I want your feedback. There are over 400 vets on campus and more coming that has seen, felt, and experienced things you don’t even want to imagine. They need somewhere tranquil on campus where they can escape and vent with others who really do understand.

I think we all have our own visions about space for groups on campus. But I also think we as a UMB community realize the Veterans Center we have currently is inadequate. For a gift to our new JFK award winner Veteran’s Center Coordinator Dominique Powell who worked so hard, the veterans that give their all, and the disabled community on campus who may want solace, can we all come together as a community and award something special?

I draw inspiration from family, friends, administrators, professors, and military leaders. To make a difference, to do something wonderful, you have to have a vision.