Time to make history happen at BC

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon reading about leftist movements of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s for a history class. Among the readings was Mario Savio's "An End to History," the famous 1964 speech that helped to ignite the free speech movement at not only UC Berkley, where Savio was a graduate student, but at colleges and universities all over the United States. Reading Savio's impassioned words, I could not help but imagine what life must have been like for a college student during this era of turbulent and volatile change in our nation's history.

Cries for equality rang out from every corner of society: from African-Americans, from women, from gays and lesbians, from students. Life was risky; life was exciting. Things moved.

It is hard to contemplate the fact that 40 years ago, students our own age, students very much like us, collectively helped to shape history. While many students today are indeed passionate about the causes they believe in, gone is the dramatic vigor and the action that characterized college life during the '60s. Gone are the urgent demands upon universities to change unfair policies, and lost with them are the sit-ins, the protests, the willingness to sacrifice anything for a common cause, the refusal to stop until real and lasting changes were made.

We have become complacent. It can be argued that societal differences are too far-reaching to even compare us to the generations of 40 years ago. We are not in the midst of a national civil rights movement, an international Red Scare or a war in Vietnam. We don't have anything to fight for, to protest. We are, however, months away from a critical presidential election. We are approaching a world-wide energy crisis that stems from most of our everyday practices. The threat of global warming looms high over our heads. There is war in Iraq, in Darfur, and in many, many other countries for that matter. A concrete immigration policy has yet to be determined.

There are problems abundant within our own school, Boston College. There is poverty in our own backyard. Any one of these issues could certainly pack a debate forum or an information session on campus, but when it comes to uniting against such problems, where is the action? Though the causes are still abundant, the mentality of the college student today is much different than in years past. We have commitments, tests, games, sleep to catch up on. There are far more important things to worry about in our own lives than global warming or the rights for child slaves in Southern Asia.

Today's society is perhaps the most individualistic that history has ever seen. It poses the question: Has history ended at BC, where often the most dramatic form of action one can take is to sign a petition? Where are the school-wide protests and movements? Are we truly standing up for what we believe in, or are we being swept through our college experience on tides of contentment with "the system"? Have we settled with what we've been given?

The number of applications for BC's class of 2012 was higher than ever before; acceptance rates have plunged from just a year ago. This trend will undoubtedly continue as BC rises in the ranks of universities nationwide. We are not students here by chance or by luck. We have worked hard for the opportunity to experience education at a higher level - education at a well-respected, well-known, demanding university.

Together, we are an incredibly powerful group of people. We cannot and should not be satisfied with the status quo simply because our own lives may not be affected on any given day by a national or global issue. The fact remains that there are systemic problems inherent in our government, in our society, in our world. History has not ended; rather, it surges forward with unprecedented and unrelenting speed. It is not enough to accept our society as it is, for we are approaching an era when it will be too late to try to go back. In our hands we hold a fragile future. It is not just our own, but that of our children and of the generations to come.

Society gives us, as college students, the unique ability and opportunity to campaign for progressive action, to literally fight for the causes we believe in. As BC students, we must consider this not just an opportunity, but a responsibility.

Amanda Leahy is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences.