Following Monday’s Daily Reveille editorial on the controversy of the chants directed at the South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday, a lot of people are questioning our expectations. Should we as a University expect our students to act with class and dignity, or should we expect the student section to be purple-and-gold heathens? The question has less to do with a rainy football game and more about how much we can reasonably expect from people. Many people argue that college students are going to drink, have sex and shout immature taunts. We should expect such behavior. Their argument assumes that expecting more than the common behavior will set us up for disappointment. It’s a dreary outlook. No one likes the idea of a few tipsy college students leading to the collective devaluation of our degrees every time the Tigers take the field. Tiger football has many wonderful traditions associated with it; is it inevitable that those traditions will be lost amid sophomoric shoutings? What would happen if our expectations were raised? If we refused to expect the worst from people and started expecting the best? I don’t know a lot about the expectations other people face, so I have to look at my own. Since I was born, my mother expected several different things from me. One of those expectations was that I would not drink until I turned the legal age. The expectation itself is not usual. I grew up in Metairie, which meant that New Orleans with its nightlife and liquor was a mere 20-minute drive away. Alcohol is an ingrained and accepted part of Louisiana life. Most expect Louisiana teenagers to have their first drink in high school. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports that 40 percent of eighth-graders and 75 percent of high school seniors have tried alcohol nationwide. My mother expected me to be in that 25 percent minority. Surprisingly, she got her wish. In a few days I will be able to say I made it to my 21st birthday without ever having any type of alcohol. I managed to do it not because I hate alcohol; at midnight on my birthday I will definitely have a drink in my hand. I don’t think the drinking age, currently set at 21, is a good law either. I think if I have the right to vote for the president, I should be able to drink away the realization I put the power to wage nuclear war in the hands of a moron. The only thing I can see that helped me “accomplish” this was that I had different expectations. My mother expected more of me, and she got it. The lesson here is if we expect more, we just might receive it. If we expect less, those low expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies. Every experienced student knows by the first few weeks of class whether the readings assigned in the syllabus are actually assigned. If the professor expects the readings to be done and checks the class’s reading through quizzes or questions, then usually those readings will be done. If teachers make lots of jokes about how “I’m sure everybody’s done the readings,” then chances are only the really nerdy kids have done the readings. If the University wants to be more than just a party and football school, then we have to expect more from ourselves. We expect our University to succeed on the football field; those expectations have to be transfered to the student body both inside and outside Tiger Stadium. We need to expect that students will act with class and dignity. We need to expect we will take our studies seriously. We need to expect every time a student at the University is on television, we as a community will be proud. It’s not an unrealistic dream. When we were expected to act graciously towards visiting Virginia Tech a few weeks ago, we were so impressive that a Virginia Tech alumnus wrote a letter to The Daily Reveille on Sept. 11 thanking us for our behavior. Just because a behavior is common does not mean we should expect or condone it. Rather, we should promote and expect better of ourselves. If we really are Louisiana’s flagship university, then we should be flying higher than anyone else. Raising expectations produces better results, and we shouldn’t be afraid of higher expectations.
—-Contact Michael Denton at [email protected]