Earlier this week, Student Senate offered Calvin students the opportunity they should have been waiting for: a chance to meet directly with three top administrators, to ask them questions directly that the administrators would answer without a script.

Unfortunately, only a few students decided to show up.

It isn't like the meetings (there were two different meetings, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, scheduled with the intent of drawing in more people) weren't advertised. They were, with signs all over campus phrased in the usual Calvin way, funny or catchy slogans meant to provoke interest: ``Ever wonder why Calvin hired your prof?'' ``Want to smoke here?'' ``One vice president. Two deans.''

During the meeting, which was in the Fish House, other students studied and visited with friends, entirely oblivious to the discussion going on just a few feet away. A few students did stare blankly at the group Monday evening, vaguely aware that Shirley Hoogstra, Bob Crow and David Diephouse don't usually hang out in the Fish House, but then they shrugged their shoulders and moved on, more absorbed in their latte and campus gossip than discussing anything that might actually affect their lives as students.

I wonder about the efforts of students to build up their community. Community can be used in so many contexts, ranging from ambiguous to quite specific, but in this case, it's safe to say that Calvin is - or certainly should be - a strong community.

If there is one situation in which students really fail to fulfill their duties as members of a community, it is in communication. While it's clichéd to say that all college students are apathetic, and untrue to apply that to all Calvin students - after all, it was students who, last year, initiated the Reconsider campaign, a campaign that resulted in the introduction of more vegetarian dishes into the dining halls and the designation of a printer in the ITC that uses only recycled paper, and it was students who put together Monday's town hall meeting - most Calvin students don't really seem to care at all about issues that affect their college, their temporary home.

It is also important to note that it is not only current Calvin students who are apathetic. As a former employee of the Calvin phone-a-thon, I have personally heard from numerous Calvin alumni who are dissatisfied with the current state of the college. However, as their only form of resistance to the changes Calvin has undergone since their graduation is withholding of donations, I doubt they are making much of an argument opposing change.

But it is sad that current students fail to speak up about their college. This is the place about which we will speak nostalgically. This is the place we will tell our children about. If we think it's going to hell in a handbasket now, how will we justify remaining here, paying tuition bills and going into serious debt in the process?

Particularly interesting, at the second session of the town hall meeting, was the end, when the administrators began asking the students questions. Not only were the students at the meeting presented information about how Calvin hires professors, why the smoking policy is the way it is and when or if it will ever change and even who is on the Board of Trustees, but they were also afforded the opportunity to tell administrators directly why they thought students act the way they often do.

If you passed up this chance, I will question you when you claim a ``right'' to have your opinion heard. Rights belong to people who work within the boundaries of a community, not people who ignore the community until they feel marginalized.

It is also very important for members of a community to understand that community. It is difficult to take the time to wade through administrative documents like the Board of Trustees report or an explanation of the hiring policy when it's on paper with the official, administrative terminology. Isn't it much simpler to attend a meeting for about an hour, listen to the experts and then ask questions about anything that isn't clear?

Evidently not.

This lack of effort by students to be an active part of their community now does not bode well for their future participation in community organizations, as habits formed during the college years are likely to become lifelong habits.

Of course, since this was just another piece of information shared at Monday's meeting, most students probably didn't know that.