The Opportunity Now Lies Before You: Grasp It!

I welcome both beginning and returning students to Yeshiva for the fall semester. Amid the euphoric clamor spawned by this University's recent surge in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, we may have lost sight of the character of the undergraduate experience we have enrolled in Yeshiva to pursue. While the aforesaid success most assuredly augurs well for our institution, we must recall that our undergraduate experience dwells not in statistical charts but in the relevance of this development to substantive educational and extracurricular advances.

The liberal education is, to my mind, the foundational component of the undergraduate experience. It is my sincere hope that Yeshiva students will continue to accord this time honored mission the deference it has earned by taking seriously the import of its charge. Only by enrolling in demanding courses in worthwhile disciplines can we assure that our Yeshiva experience is not reduced to the mind numbing pre-vocational drudgery that the liberal education has always sought to eschew.

But alas, the liberal education conceived of as a dry, purely academic enterprise bereft of the vitality of application surely will not suffice to render our undergraduate experience what we wish it to be. Theoretical abstraction in the absence of a mode for practical expression can be as stultifying as ignorance. Oliver Wendell Holmes recognized this when he observed, "The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live." Thus, in my view, the undergraduate experience must seek to productively engage the activities of the broader educational community in which it finds itself in order to be truly meaningful.

Fortunately, Yeshiva has an abundance of student led extra-curricular societies. Less fortunately, precious few of these student organizations are active. Among the handful of active student entities, one has consistently emerged over the course of its sixty-three years as the leader. I speak of The Commentator, Yeshiva's preeminent undergraduate student publication and the defining instrument of undergraduate student expression at this University. I believe The Commentator deserves the attention of all students who wish to play a role in campus leadership.

But why should you devote your time to The Commentator? What does The Commentator do anyhow? As I see it, The Commentator fulfills two primary functional imperatives. First, it informs. This paper keeps students abreast of the developments that matter to them in a timely and engaging fashion. The Commentator provides comprehensive coverage of what transpires on campus at the administrative and student levels. We employ exceptional vigor to uncover stories of consequence and report on them thoroughly. The Commentator's mandate to inform is not bounded in scope by this University's hallowed halls. The Commentator's coverage purview extends beyond the confines of the campus to include a broad swath of Jewish communal concerns and themes of importance to university students.

The Commentator's second obligation is to advocate student interests. This charge is of intense significance at this University in light of the dearth of structural mechanisms for preventing the administration from running roughshod over the needs of students. In the absence of an effective campaign of student activism, the onus is upon The Commentator to crusade for the interests of students and register objection to administrative excesses that tend to encroach upon our legitimate rights. I do not mean to suggest that the University administration is a nefarious apparatus that consciously seeks to thwart student aims. It is not. When, however, the administration is left to operate unfettered, it, not unlike any self-interested entity, as a matter of course will pursue its independent objectives to the occasional abnegation of those of others. Those others are us -- the students. Such a state of affairs is untenable. As James Russell Lowell knew, "They have rights who dare maintain them." We will not permit our sacrosanct rights to be sacrificed on the altar of student silence. That is why The Commentator musters a pronounced student check on administrative machinations that would trammel our interests. In the University sea of bureaucratic moral relativism, The Commentator is the dependable vessel that safeguards students from the perils of the oft turbulent waters that swell around us and skillfully navigates our interests to fruition.

If we wish The Commentator to efficaciously fulfill its functional imperatives, we the students must assure that it is capable of so doing. That is why I exhort every undergraduate student in this university to contribute in some way to The Commentator. Only by harnessing the productive potential of the student populace can we hope to execute our designs. Whether you have a propensity for writing and investigation, are possessed of keen business acumen, or have a penchant for organization, I strenuously urge you to contribute your services in order that The Commentator may better serve the University community.

For those skeptical would-be campus leaders who are given to conceive of The Commentator as an impenetrable campus elite concerned to consolidate power by prohibiting access to newcomers, I must forcefully disabuse you of your fallacious notion. The Governing Board of this publication does not, nor do we wish to, dwell in an ivory tower hermetically sealed off from the student populace. If we were to so act, we would fail our sacred charge to serve students. The Commentator functions as a meritocracy. Commentator staff members are awarded positional advance in a manner commensurate to their demonstrated level of contribution. We are not an "old boy's club." Our ranks include a fairly representative cross section of Yeshiva College student culture. The Commentator can only maintain this desirable diversity if students from all sectors of the student populace continue to participate in its function.

I encourage you to get involved in The Commentator this year. By so doing, you will better this University and round out your undergraduate experience. A Commentator recruitment presentation will take place on Wednesday September 2. I hope to see you there.