North Dakota State students in the 1960’s were worried about the apathy of the incoming class and where the future would lead NDSU, and in 50 years voices of the past can remain true today.
“In the past, the few interested students tried to provide enough momentum to keep the campus alive. Regardless, the telelectures failed, the dances and special weekends fizzled and even the football games did not attract a large percentage of students,” an excerpt of an editorial published by The Spectrum on Sept. 8, 1966 said. “Without student involvement what will happen. All the extra-curricular activities which make college an experience rather than four years of classes will be forgotten. The paper will slip into mediocrity for lack of help, student government will not take on any new spirit, Union events will fail and NDSU will become more of a commuter school than ever.”
The concerns of the past have transpired into the problems of today and will continue to be the concerns of NDSU.
At the time, NDSU had just broke a record enrollment of 5,400 students with a large freshman class, school dances were common and parents’ weekend was a thing. Students also attended football games in Dakotah field, had a very active and full campus paper and had most students living on or near campus.
Now, though, dances seldom occur and special weekends at NDSU are practically non-existent, save for when the Bison have a home game. Even so, in latter parts of the season students do not fill the student section of the Fargodome.
Extracircular activities remain for all students, perhaps even stronger than ever before, and the paper has had to change its ways from being a print-only paper to stay relevant.
The sad fact of reality is that most college students primarily receive their news from social media and most news outlets have had to adjust to keep up.
Now, NDSU is more of a commuter school than ever before. This is in part due to distance and continued education teaching, which is primarily online based courses that allow students to work from wherever there be internet connection and not have to be on campus.
Apathy
Students are generally apathetic toward NSDU organizations as a whole.
Student government, for example, sent a Follow-Up Friday email via listserv Sept. 9, student government reported that 69 percent of all Tuesday Two respondants did not know who their student senator is or how to contact them. The same report said an additional 25 percent did not know who their senator was, but did know how to contact them.
An average of 1,203 students have responded to the last two Tuesday Two’s as well, indicating that approximately only 70 respondants of Tuesday Twos know who their senators are, and only 8.3 percent of the entire 14,432 member student population has responded to Tuesday Twos.
Another example can be found with athletic events outside of NDSU’s bread and butter, the Bison football team. Student sections at men’s basketball games in the Scheel’s Arena were extremely low compared to the entirety of the student population, and women’s soccer cannot fill the less-than 3,000 seats with students for home games in Dacotah field.
Future outlook
In 50 years, I project further growth of NDSU’s student population by the thousands. Both previous NDSU president Joseph Chapman and current NDSU president Dean Bresciani set goals during their time in the position to increase NDSU’s student population by several thousand members to 12,000 and 18,000, respectively.
New residences halls will be built and old ones will be remodeled for improvements. These will serve the primary purpose of housing NDSU students, but will also increase the appeal of on-campus living to new students.
Apathy toward student government will continue to grow. Students will become more and more engrossed in their virtual worlds of communicating with friends from afar as opposed to in person, and thus the nature of some student government features such as campus attractions will become less used. Students will also only notice student government’s existence when tuition and student fees are bound to increase.
Students will also be turning NDSU into even more of a commuter school than ever before. As online technology becomes more cost effective and more students have access to the technology, it would not be unfeasible to see students opting to learn from home at their own pace instead of needing to wake up in the early morning for classes.
In 50 years, it would not be irrational to predict that NDSU football will have joined an FBS conference such as the Big 10. A change like this would also most likely include building a new stadium twice as large as the Fargodome for the Herd to play in, call it Carson Wentz Stadium if you wish. It would also not be irrational to predict that at the current rate of development, culture and playing style, the Bison may be a Rose Bowl venturing team in 50 years. NDSU could grow to the point where another of college’s largest sports, hockey, is booming at NDSU. Most other schools NDSU competes with in the region, such as the University of North Dakota and the University of Minnesota, have hockey teams.
In 50 years, NDSU will continue to remain a cost-effective school in which students can receive a high quality post-secondary education at a lower cost than other schools NDSU competes with, such as the U of M.
Demographics will also change at NDSU, as more non-white students and more female students will attend. If NDSU continues to be a top 200 ranked school and continues to have dominance in football as well as other college sports, it would not be unlikely to see higher rates of enrollment from different states and nations, as opposed to roughly 86 percent of the student population being from Minnesota and North Dakota.