To my fellow students:
For those who are unaware, the exterior of the Flint auditorium was vandalized pretty extensively with spray paint this past weekend. The messages were directed at nobody in particular, but they were aimed at disparaging chemistry, in particular, organic chemistry.
As a chemistry major with immense respect for my department and all of its faculty, I am obviously directly offended by this. In general, an act like this shows complete disregard for people who help make this university what it is and also for the facilities that we use.
I have been reflecting on this, and I realized that this brings up an opportunity to convey an important message. As students, we are all busy trying to get our homework done, meet all of our deadlines, prepare for our exams and do all of this well enough to make the cut for the graduate programs or the job markets that are the next step.
Really though, despite all of this immediate stress, we must realize that we are among the luckiest individuals on the planet. Education is one of the biggest privileges on the face of the Earth.
We get to grow up, decide what we want to study here and choose a career path that will provide us with stability and even intellectual fulfillment. This is our reality.
On this same planet, there are humans who are born into poverty, political instability and war who don’t have access to adequate amounts of food and clean water. There are people who go to sleep at night hoping that bombs won’t detonate and destroy their homes. There are parents who would give their lives for their children to be able to study here and decide what they want to be when they grow up.
So to the people who committed this act of vandalism:
I would love for you to have to sit in a room, look one of these people in the eyes, and convey to them exactly what you did — how this organic chemistry course that you have the privilege of taking as a part of your UF education just inconvenienced you so much with its workload that you went and defaced a university building. To me, this act shows that you not only have no respect for our university but also that you have put no thought whatsoever into the condition of the world.
I am quite fond of the Student Body here. In fact, it includes some of my closest friends in life. I am confident that we won’t let this small group of individuals serve as any sort of reflection of who we are and what we stand for. Let us use this event as a reminder to take a step back and appreciate what we have. We owe it to the world.
Jamie Luskin
UF Organic Chemistry 2 TA
