"People over romanticize and over fantasize how good of a place auburn is and the whole tagline is this auburn, this is the auburn family and I hated that campaign from the day I heard it because we all knew. Not all of us, but all of us knew the auburn family wasn’t our family. There’s a question that should be asked in response to that statement and it should be, whose family? Because we know it’s not ours,” said Joshah Cass, senior in aerospace engineering.
There may be more students that feel this way but no one would know because it isn't voiced. Are they even given the chance to voice such opinions?
To the untrained eye, most would believe that organizations such as BSU or SGA are doing a great job. Cass begs to differ as he tweeted somethings to and about the minority organizations at Auburn.
According to Cass he has been trying to change things for a long time pertaining to minority organizations. Cass said that from his freshman year until January he was with them, it wasn’t until his senior year that he decided to take a step back because, “one person or one entity can’t bare the weight of change on their shoulders,” said Cass.
According to Cass, he’s been to different schools in different states within the SEC who also have black student unions, black student assemblies, black student leagues that actually partner with minority organizations to make the minority students feel welcomed and included on their campus so it frustrates him when Auburn organizations act as if they’re the best when they don’t have anything to back it up.
“In January I gave the first state of the black student body address in Foy hall and a lot of the leaders of these organizations were in that room that night and it feels like everything we talked about went in one ear and out the other. And not only is it demoralizing, it’s disrespectful because a lot of them are doing it, it seems from a self-serving perspective as opposed to trying to unify everybody else. I think it’s gotten to the point where that word unity is now a taboo word,” said Cass.
Cass said that when he first came to Auburn he joined the organizations to see what they were like and that’s when he realized that there were certain people in certain positions of influence that shouldn’t have been there.
He said that it isn’t that they weren’t good people but that they weren’t ready and were reluctant to accept criticism because of personal reasons.
“They just didn’t want to hear it because they didn’t want to be told about themselves which is fine but when you take the oath to become a leader you don’t have the choice,” said Cass.
According to Cass as years went on, organizations began to intentionally downplay others and block them from getting a certain crowd.
“But I’m a senior and I’m about to get out of here and I’ve put in a lot of work to make sure that a lot of organizations are where they are today. And to see it all unfold within a semester, it didn’t even take a semester, its very shocking and you don’t want to see this for the next freshman class to come in, I don t want anybody coming in as a freshman feeling like I did,” said Cass.
Cass said that this semester was supposed to be the semester when some of those organizations said they would do things differently and also a chance for upperclassmen and alumni to put their eyes on them and see what they’re going to do, “and what we’re seeing is the complete opposite.”
According to Cass, SGA is the main organization with an issue. “As the student government association their slogan is to be the representative of the entire student body and we know that they’re not. White students on this campus make up between 80 and 86 percent of the student body, SGA is 96 to 98 percent white. If any criticism should levity against any organization, it should be SGA,” said Cass.
Cass said that he doesn’t think minority students feel comfortable telling anyone how they feel, and that even if they are outspoken individuals he doesn’t think they know the proper chain of command to go to.
According to Cass, if the minority students don’t know the positions and opportunities that are laid out for them, then they can’t go for them. Which he thinks causes a bit of a tug of war between the students and organizations.
“There’s never been a want for people to be in positions but a lot of positions when it comes to election time go uncontested that’s really the main issue. They’re not doing their civic duty to inspire people to want to be on an executive board or to be in cabinet or a committee or be involved,” said Cass.
Cass said a leader’s entire year is predicated on how they appear to the membership, how they run events and how they conduct themselves when things go wrong.
“The pivotal moment between all of that and what shows how affective of a leader you are is how many people remember you when you’re gone and how many people want to be like you if not better for the good reasons,” said Cass.
Not only did Cass tweet about the organizations, but Auburn as a whole. According to Cass, Auburn is mediocre in every aspect of the word. He said it isn’t a shining example of anything when it comes to student life, it’s traditional and they use the word tradition through high progress.
Cass also said he thinks Auburn is unoriginal because it seems as if they see one school doing one thing and try to do the same thing, but better. According to Cass when they’re trying to progress to a certain level it feels like Auburn isn’t doing it out of pure originality and for their own benefit, he said they’re trying to take a model from someone else and say “I can do it better.”
“They’re competing but for all the wrong reasons. They’re not treeing to say were going to make our students better because we know that they can be better, it’s their students are doing a certain thing we have culpable amount of resources, money, and we have culpable amount of pull in student admissions, so were not only going to meet your levels, were going to better them,” said Cass.
Cass said he wants a response and his tweets were supposed to have a shock value and his intentions were to get their attention. He wants to change things, not just for himself but everyone else.
“Minority students are going to continue to see auburn a certain way that is conflicting with your views and that will be bad for your reputation. When people come out of auburn they don’t feel like it’s a family, they don’t feel like it’s a home. They’re not going to tell their friends and family to go here if anything they’re going to tell them not to come here and this falls on you. This isn’t your fault intentionally; this isn’t your fault directly, but as the president of this organization or the president of this university when anything goes wrong it comes back on you, that’s just the way the world works. So if you want to improve it you have to admit that there is a problem first and foremost and then we can try to fix it,” said Cass.
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