When we have employees whose job descriptions include planning student events, then yeah, the college should plan student events.

But I get why some would argue against this question. Most other colleges leave it up to students to plan their own events, making it their responsibility. And that makes perfect sense.

Lakeland is even trying to get students to move in that direction, as evidenced by the Success department’s cutting back on days that they promote/put on events. Despite the issues with this decision, they are leaving these days open for us, the students, to step forward and do what we want.

We’ve always had this option, most of us just didn’t know it, and therein lays part the problem.

There is a lack of adequate communication between students and anyone in authority positions who should be informing students of our options and how we should go about not only planning our own events, but regarding almost anything of importance.

You can have the expectation of students to plan their own events all day long, but if you don’t communicate to them that they can do this, and how, how can you ever expect them to do so?

Also, we’re in the middle of nowhere. We can’t really go anywhere without it being a coordinated effort and lacking access to anything nearby makes most ideas difficult.

The additional issue of a lack of events is the fault of both the college and the students.

The college is at fault for not informing students of their options and for failing to meet the needs of the students, while students are at fault for not knowing, not caring and for not being more involved when given the chance.

However, it’s hard to blame students, especially if they are bogged down with studying, work or sports to the point where they can’t justify devoting time to planning events.

Isn’t this what the college should want, its students focusing on being good students?

Wouldn’t it then make sense to have the college plan events for its students? Wouldn’t it justify why we have employees whose partial role is to facilitate this purpose?

Perhaps the simplest answer is as long as the college wants to keep its students from leaving, it needs to plan events for them.