OUR VIEW: Faculty and administration offer countless opportunity like critical conversation panels for students to use their voices, talents and perspectives that students fail to utilize.

Faculty members put on panel discussions that pertain to relevant and serious issues evident in national headlines, and yet only a handful of students bothered to show up or participate in the discussion following the events. Students are quick to whine and slow to act, yet we feel entitled in spouting our opinion on social media instead of actively doing something to garner interest and development.

Just this month, a Florida high school had students come under attack by a gunman who ended several lives, silenced several people forever. And now the very students that were targeted survived and are passionately using their voices, using their school newspaper and arming themselves with their inalienable rights to free speech to find an end to their means. They want to see action, so they made the first step.

People can only advertise events or write about important topics for so long before the burden falls on the neglectful audiences that either aren’t seeking the information or are looking for an excuse to be lazy and uninformed.

There is no better place to learn more topics and discuss the hard issues than at a liberal arts university, and if we choose to passively go through our days, then we are wasting thousands of dollars and valuable time.

The world is at our fingertips, and we live in a time where people are eager to discuss current events everywhere you turn, but people have to be well-informed and confident enough in themselves to use the rights given to them through the Constitution. Speak your mind, be heard, and for the sake of saving this generation, stop being idle. Choose to have a sense of purpose and participate in critical conversations amongst one another.