The University of Richmond Collegian 10/13/94

Staff Editorial

by Jeffrey Carl, Opinion Editor

What We Think

an Opinion from the Collegian Staff

“Be Weird and Multiply”

Many people complain that the University of Richmond is a stuffy, conservative school, light years behind the political trends on most campuses across the country.

This is true.

And, if you look at all this the right way, it’s wonderful.

This makes it the perfect climate for anyone with avant-garde or creative intentions to do their thing and shake things up. It’s no fun to be “weird” and “artsy” when you’re supposed to be weird and artsy.

The University is free, in its stodgy way, from all the excesses of political correctness and the enforced liberalism of thought that seem de rigeur at many schools. It’s perfectly acceptable to be as conservative or normal as you want.

It also means that it is the perfect environment, if you are so inclined, to be as strange as you want. Be shocking.

• Perform guerilla theater re-enactments of Brady Bunch episodes on Boatwright Lawn.

• Start a magazine devoted entirely to making fun of “Ibis.”

• Hold face-painting clinics.

• Burn Bob Dole in effigy.

• Burn Norman Mailer for real, if you can get your hands on him.

Do whatever you damn well please, and make the whole college sit up and notice it.

The University isn’t very “cool” for a modern college. So this is your chance to play around with the Way Things Are. Make Richmond weird. You don’t have to do anything really strange here. So that’s your cue.

This is not The Collegian’s Official Bohemian Radical Communist Call to Action. This is simply an invitation to those or are so inclined to give everybody else something to talk about.

And have some fun with it.