As a journalism student writing for the Campus Times, it is only every other week or so that I get to write a column and express my oftentimes not-so-well-received opinion at the University of La Verne’s campus—a campus built on tradition, values and stable ideals.
Being in the Campus Times office as regularly as I am, I heard all the buzz on Cal Poly’s underground magazine, Low, put out by Cal Poly students, and the great debate whether or not ULV should allow Low to be distributed on its own magazine racks on campus.
Before I even held a copy of Low in my hands, let alone opened the glossy black and white cover, I was prepared for the worst, but what I discovered when I read Low was that it is not “trash” at all. In fact, I was in hysterical awe because Low impressed me as an organized, well-written publication with all of the delightful charm of a regular magazine, but with a twist of cynicism that leaves the reader spinning with fresh ideas to ponder.
So what if Low deals with issues such as sexual promiscuity, drugs and other controversial issues that are so hush-hush on ULV’s pristine campus? These are issues that are faced every day by people everywhere, even by La Verne students, so why shouldn’t they be written about and acknowledged?
The truth of the matter is that Low is a good magazine and is of the real world, not the sheltered world. It bothers me to hear that the ULV administration is so fearful of Low’s distribution on campus, as if the real fear lies in the actuality that Low might even get ULV students to think, form opinions and react as individuals.
Please, as if the grass will be any less greener if we read something alternative to La Verne’s sheltered norm.
We are college students and we should be able to read, act, think, support, feel and believe anything we want.
My definition of good writing is anything that provokes thought, rouses emotion or rips a person out of the fairy-tale monotony of everyday life and gets the blood flowing. Low does this, and is funny as hell when read with an open mind. Can I say it again? Open mind.
It is easy to judge and easy to condemn, and yes, easy to shelter, but I do not see how it is so easy to assume in the first place that we, as students, need to have our hands held so that the distribution of Low is considered a loss of control over student thinking.
The “Open Letter To ULV” taken out as a Low advertisement by Mark Cromer, editor in chief of the controversial magazine, was published in last week’s issue of the Campus Times. It caused less of an uproar than the previously-submitted Low ad, which was not run at all because of direct attacks on La Verne Magazine. The printed letter was tacky, catty and almost insulting to ULV administration, but it was successful in showing ULV that it is OK to laugh once in a while, and that the First Amendment is still alive and kicking.
It is not like we are all going to drop out of the ULV student population because some magazine tells us we are lame. Please, give us a little credit. If that is all we needed to know, we would have been out of here a long time ago. La Verne is a damn good school for more reasons than just the conservative, yet newsworthy, topics chosen for the La Verne Magazine and the Campus Times.
Low does what most magazines wish they could do—go against the accepted grain and write with a flare of cynicism, soul and persuasion about real issues that interest all kinds of open minded people who are not afraid to hear more than the pretty side of an issue.
As a journalism student, I can only hope that ULV takes Low’s strike below the belt, not as a strike against tradition and normalcy, but as strike of reality to La Verne inhibitions, the place where we need it the most, where free expression can lie as dormant as the dead ivy on Founder’s Hall in the winter. But like all living things, we too can grow.
