By: Alannah Wallace
In recent years, SFU has boasted about its commitment to “engage the world.” The school claims that SFU students “aren’t ‘end-users’ to be trained and delivered, but partners in learning, discovery and community engagement.” Although this was the main goal of SFU’s administration, recent studies have shown that a pattern of disengagement was found among students.
After a study done by the psychology department here on campus, it was found that students are actively learning how to avoid any type of community engagement both on and off campus. It was found that 65% of alumni claimed their degree’s most functional use was as a surface off of which to eat pizza.Current students were found to show above-average ability in assessing which social interactions they can avoid by putting in headphones. Another area they have become especially well trained in is how to avoid eye contact with people they know walking past them in the Academic Quadrangle. About 40% of eye contact is avoided by pretend-scrolling on one’s phone, 20% is avoided by immediate enabling of the dead-inside stare straight ahead, 10% read posters on the wall, and the last 30% is achieved by miscellaneous strategies, such as turning around and sprinting in the other direction.
One of the most alarming findings of this study was the decline in SFU students’ social skills over recent years. The few students who fight back against the disengagement movement often end up trying to start up fun clubs for the lifeless, even offering free food and drinks, but to no avail. While these students believe they are helping engage their fellow students on campus, their efforts have instead received reactions of disgust and contempt.
Instead of engaging students, their efforts resulted in students filing a motion to remove club fees from tuition payment. The students simply do not know how to react in large social settings, and would rather avoid such situations. The motion has been passed by an overwhelming majority of student voters, and will be put into place beginning in the fall 2018 semester.
SFU executives are appalled at these levels of disengagement among students. They sent representatives to find out from students themselves what they can do to increase engagement and save SFU’s reputation as the “Engaged University.” Unfortunately, they couldn’t get anyone to stop and talk to them. The representatives reported that when they asked students to for their thoughts, everyone was either on the phone, pretending they didn’t exist, or both. Due to these reports of disengagement among students, SFU has begun questioning its status as the university that is “Engaging the World.” Earlier this week, painters were seen painting over the posters and slogans about engagement around campus.
