Over the years, it has come to be known that banners are one of the key ways to promote events on campus.
Supplies like paper and paint from the Student Development Office are provided by the Student Development Office to create and post banners in certain areas of the campus.
Lately, however, there has been a desecration of banners around school. Everything from ripping banners off the wall to defiling banners by adding on or crossing out words has affected this tool of communication.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a saying that suggests words have no power to harm. However, words can be powerful indeed, and when a message is altered to belittle someone or misconstrue a meaning, people can end up very hurt.
This type of action is not only hurtful to the people who are taking the time to make these posters and put them up, but it is also hurtful to the students who want to keep up-to-date with campus events and information.
It becomes more and more disheartening as banners go up and get torn down, sometimes as quickly as the very next day.
In addition to that, without these banners, students who use them to know when and where events are scheduled become frustrated and cannot utilize them as they were intended.
Without pointing fingers, it is only safe to say that to stop this from continuing we need to have respect for our fellow students.
As cliché as that sounds, without respect, things will only get worse when it comes to defiling people’s banners. Many of these banners belong to clubs that enrich the students’ experience at EC and give back to the community.
Club members post fliers advertising events and meeting times and a lot of people don’t get a chance to see the posters and attend the meetings because they don’t see the poster before it is torn down or defiled.
Not only do students put a lot of time and effort into their posters and fliers, but they also have to wait to receive permission before posting them. For them to put that much work and time into their posters and then having them defaced is discouraging.
Respect is the only solution to this problem because if we just inform students that it is not OK to tear down fliers they are more likely to listen to authority figures.
If the problem continues, students should be warned that there can be other disciplinary actions as well for defacing the posters.
As peers on this campus, we need to share with others that we should respect the work and effort that students are putting in and respect each other by not degrading banners anymore.
The views expressed in Campus Insight are those of the authors alone. They do not represent the views or opinions of the Union, its staff, editorial board, or advisers.
