A proposal to install a new flat-screen television in Westco’s common lounge has divided residents, with tensions looming large at an emotionally-charged debate last week.
The debate has forced WestCo residents to grapple with difficult questions about the very nature of their community as they seek to preserve what they see as its unique character.
“I believe TV fosters a very specific type of interaction,” said Jeremy Isard ’11. “It’s going to limit our social lives…in a [place] like WestCo we value other modes of communication. A TV doesn’t add anything to the community.”
The stifling of person-to-person interaction and the lack of intellectual stimulation inherent in television viewing were common sentiments among several of the residents interviewed.
“We ought to be able to come up with a more creative way to spend our time,” said Miles Bukiet ’11. “When we met [to discuss the TV] a lot of residents talked about wanting to play music, to talk, to think, not just absorb.”
Adam Jacobs ’10 agreed.
“[Television] has the amazing ability to inject within you platitudes and stereotypes and atrophied thinking,” he said. “I think overall it’s much more interesting to talk to people than to get brainwashed by a TV.”
Jacobs cited other ways in which he thought the money could be better spent.
“We could buy a piano,” he said. “You could get speakers [and a sound system] for the lounge. You could make WestCo greener. We could buy plants [for common areas].”
Ivan Maulana ’11 also wanted to spend the television money on improving the interior of WestCo, both for residents and the planet.
“We could redecorate the lounge to make it more comfy,” he said. “We could fix the thermostat, buy clothes-drying racks, weather-strip the doors, buy cookware.”
Ezra Nachman ’11 disagreed, noting that students don’t control how money is spent.
“It’s not like we can say we don’t want the TV, we want [other things] instead,” he said.
However, he did see some positive aspects to bringing the big screen to WestCo.
“As much as TV invades our lives, it does definitely build community,” Nachman said. “For the World Series I had to go to Fauver and I don’t want to have to go elsewhere for that. [Plus] we could have movie nights in the lounge.”
Area Coordinator Jonathan E. Connery, who first presented the plan to residents, was surprised the plan drew such opposition.
“The TV debate…caught me totally off guard,” he wrote via e-mail. “The intent…of a larger TV in the lounge sparked from other residence halls [Fauver] having better TVs than my area, WestCo and Clark.”
He explained that the television money could not be used for other things.
“[The TV funding] would be coming out of a budget separate from the actual WestCo programming fund and could not be used at the halls’ discretion,” he said.
He suggested that residents utilize the ResLife programming fund or contact Physical Plant to implement their ideas.
For Sarah Brown ’10 the television proposal itself was not as important as the debate it engendered.
“WestCo can use the discussion about [TV] funding as a way to develop the decision-making process,” she said. “It’s an important community conversation to see how things like this will be run in the future.”
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