This first edition of the semester was not without annoying technical glitches, but the important thing is that we’re back and so very happy about it. This week, correspondent Cassidy Hodges takes us inside the lavishness that is Patton Hall, and Dustin Stout joins the crew to give us the details on the Bell Tower renovation.

Vision: How did you start out?

Miss B.: I was signed to an independent label in D.C. at 14 and took off from there. I’m no longer with them. Actually I have my own company now, an LLC, so basically I’m signed to myself right now.

What was it that got you started down the road of wanting to rap and be in music?

With the poetry, I actually got an idea from a friend. They said, “You’re really good at poetry. Have you ever tried to do your poetry with music, and tried to rap it?” And I was like, “No, I’ve never tried that before.” And they were like, “You know, you should try it,” so I started doing it. I was good at it, and I wrote all the time, so I guess it became a habit to write and to do it with music. But I never, when I was younger, considered it to be a career at all because I was always the smart kid. I always wanted to be the lawyer or the doctor or something like that. People started telling me I was really good at it and I should keep doing it, and it just took over my life.

Do you have a process for when you write?

I get most of my ideas at night, so most of the time when I write it’s always midnight or after, and when I’m writing to music, I have to have the music very loud. It’s a habit. I try to become one with the beat or the instrumental, and then I write from there, so that’s the process when I already have the music. Other times, if I have a story to tell I write the story out first, and then I’ll make the rhyme patterns from there.

Where do you think that rap and hip-hop fit into the Belmont music scene?

It was definitely hard trying to fit in at first, but what I learned from being at Belmont – going on my third year this year – is that students at Belmont just like good music. Whether it’s indie music or pop, or even hip-hop, as long as it’s good music and the artist is talented they appreciate it, so I think that’s how it fits in. As long as you’re good at what you do, and you practice, and you legitimately have talent, I think people come out to your shows and they support your music and really learn to appreciate you as an artist. Belmont’s very critical, so you can’t just be like, “Uh, today I’m going to rap.” It has to be a career.

Who would you say has influenced you? And who do you listen to?

I’m influenced a lot by old female rappers like MC Lyte –  I love her, hands down – and the old Lil’ Kim, before she started getting into the pop realm. Right now, consistently, I listen to Nicki Minaj because as far as female MCs, she’s the artist I compete with – not literally because I’m not at the same level that she is, but I want to be, so it’s like studying your competition. I listen to her a lot. And Drake, I really respect his flow. I kind of use and learn from him as far as how he flows and stuff like that.

What was the last album that you bought?

The last album that I bought was Drake’s Thank Me Later.

And that was a good pick?

Oh, definitely – start to finish.

What do you like about it?

I like the fact that he sings and raps, the double threat is awesome. I think it’s one or two songs that have Auto-Tune on it. A lot of times nowadays these rappers are getting caught up in doing the dance songs and the songs with all the Auto-Tune on it. This album is lyrical. It has substance to it, so you can listen to it, you can learn from it, and it’s really something that makes you think. That’s how rap started out. The purpose of it was to tell stories or to talk about the DJ. It started from people, MCs hyping up their DJ. Drake and Nicki Minaj and the artists that are out now are getting away from doing the dance records and the Auto-Tune and stuff. They’re going back to the actual story telling, and that’s why I like it a lot.

To backtrack a little bit, you were saying that you got signed when you were 14 years old, can you talk a little bit about how that happened?

My sister was actually dating a guy that was in A&R for an independent label out of DC. She introduced me to him, and I rapped for them and they signed me. But you know how they say, “Not every deal is a good deal?” That was the case with me. I was so young, and I was so caught into the fact that I was getting signed and that I was making a little bit of money, for sneakers and food and everything. But the truth is I was too young, I wasn’t prepared enough, I don’t think, but I got some good things out of that with them, I got a lot of shows, I did a lot of compilation CDs with them and their label, video shoots, photo shoots, kind of to just get to know how the game worked. Also, they’re the ones who got me on BET’s 106 & Park and stuff like that, but I left them right after I turned 16.

So you were saying that you’re kind of signed to yourself.

I have my own LLC. It’s Exclusive Records LLC, and it’s basically just an entertainment company that me and my mom started together. That way I can put out music by myself, and just do my own thing without having someone control over me. If I was to get signed with a major label it would be more like a distribution deal between my label and them rather than them signing me as an artist.

You’ve done a lot of shows; is there one that sticks out?

The show that I did for Haiti stuck out a lot. It was an honor to be asked to perform. It was at Belmont. Taylor Swift showed up. I was sitting next to her, and I didn’t even know who she was. I just really thought it was another Belmont kid, and when I got up to perform, she moved up to the front and sat down in front of the stage, and I was just in awe, like, OK, Taylor Swift is here. I’ve done shows for a cause, I’ve done shows for HIV awareness and a lot of different stuff, but Haiti was one of those shows where you really felt like you were doing something. I actually wrote a song particularly for that event, so that made it even more special.

Do you have anything planned for the year?

I’m doing a song that I’m trying to get to Young Money Cash Money, so I’m going to be recording a lot, and this year I plan on assisting other artists at Belmont, whether it’s doing a lot of features, or doing a lot of shows with different artists. This past year I was doing so many shows by myself that people were asking me to do songs and I wasn’t able to do it. This year I’m really going to focus on teamwork with other artists and probably try to get in the Atlanta market a little bit.

Do you have advice for your fellow Belmont artists?

Don’t strive to be famous, don’t strive to make a lot of money, just strive to be a great artist because, in the end, your fans will appreciate your artistry. Your fans will appreciate the songs that you sing that relate to their life more so than the fact that you’re famous. I think a lot of times as students, we kind of get discouraged if this deal doesn’t go through, or if we don’t make the cut for this show, or the showcase. I think if we just strive to be great artists, everything else will be OK.

In a metaphorical sense, it’s impossible to see all of Belmont at once, especially from our viewpoint as students. In a rapidly changing environment, it feels as there is seldom a moment to stop and just be at the Belmont that exists right now. Recently while talking to a few friends, we had a moment where we just couldn’t remember if the psychology building had been torn down. Yet it has; in fact, I saw it happen.

A lot happened at Belmont this summer, and it is with these thoughts in mind that this issue is aimed to bring you up to speed.

Over the summer, anyone who stayed on campus saw the Bell Tower get swallowed up in scaffolding, the pharmacy building receive its final touches before it was christened McWhorter Hall, and Patton and Bear House halls fill out that solid two rows of North Lawn dorms. Shoot, even  the Circle K got a makeover (details on page 3.) While we’re taking stock of what’s happened at Belmont on a large scale, we also wanted to let you know where the Vision is.

Last year we plastered a mission statement of sorts on the cover of the August issue. All that we said then still stands. The Vision is here to cover the stories that matter to you. We still want you to tell us what’s on your mind and we’d still love to see you swing by a staff meeting and get involved by taking a story or shooting some pictures or  whatever the case may be.

In this spirit, we’re continuing with our weekly web show, The Week at Belmont. If you haven’t seen it, it’s our tongue-in-cheek news roundup, everything you need to know about the week’s happenings, but laced with humor and random Viking sightings. (Go watch.)

We’re also reaffirming our commitment to timely, relevant coverage both in print and online. If you haven’t been to belmontvision.com, check it out. The Vision in print is monthly, so everything that happens in between goes straight to the web.

Beyond that, look for new recurring features like The Beat ‘n’ Track, a Q&A with Belmont bands and artists. This month we’re kicking things off with Miss B. Also, keep an eye on both the paper and the website for restaurant reviews, concert reviews and news as it happens on campus. We’ve been compiling and planning all summer, so we’re excited to get to it.

Welcome back.

Walk inside and unless you’re in the market for an armadillo-shaped handbag or a belt buckle disguised as a flask, Katy K’s might not seem to offer much beyond novelty.

Down the hallway, though, the walls are lined with autographed pictures of country music stars. Rooms that shoot off to the side are filled with Western wear, new and vintage for men, women and babies. Whether it’s a loud, a flashy embroidered Grand Ole Opry-style Western shirt, a colonel tie, a fedora for club wear, or a 1950s dress that might have caught Bettie Page’s eye, Katy K’s Ranch Dressing has it, and you better believe people want them all. Kitschy up front, serious in back, the store has a lot in common with the lady who owns it.

The namesake of the store, Katy K Kattelman, walks out from the hallway sporting gray lace-less Converse sneakers and a beige dress with a cowgirl pinup pattern. She’s approachable and willing to give a tour, noting which fabrics look sexy and which shirts the younger guys like to buy.

It feels as if it were in another life that Katy K was a designer in New York, with a concession in Fiorucci, a 1980s fashion hot spot. As she sits at a cow print tabletop in the stuffy kitchen in the back of the store, Kattelman recounts her life without an ounce of bravado or boast,  even though she is a designer featured in the New York Times and Harper’s Bazaar and the owner of a store that was often frequented by country legend Porter Wagoner.

Kattelman grew up in Philadelphia. The fashion bug caught her young, “I guess it was seeing my mother get ready and remembering her beautiful clothes,” she said.
One year her parents gave her a little dressmaker’s dummy for Christmas. She set to work to try to make a replica of one of her mother’s cocktail dresses out of Kleenex. From there she started sewing and making dresses for her dolls.

“It’s funny, because I love clothes and I love costumes, but I was really never up with fashion,” she said. “I just had what I liked and what I wanted to look like, or what I wanted people to look like.”

As far as the genesis for her interest in Western wear, she cited the Western movies she loved as a child and a local kid’s show called Popeye Theater. The host was a cowgirl by the name of Sally Starr. “Our Gal Sal” came on in the afternoons after the TV music hit, “American Bandstand.”

Sal made an impression. “She used to wear cowgirl outfits with rhinestones, and fringe, and she had platinum blonde hair, and I just loved the way she looked,” Kattelman said. “ I think that’s the only way I can figure that I got into it.”

Eventually, she moved to New York and went to fashion school. Kattelman had a series of lucky breaks, but not before putting in some time making raincoats out of shower curtains. “[I was] just walking into boutiques saying, ‘You want to buy these?’”

Life changed in the late ‘70s, though.  “I had a dear friend who worked at Fiorucci, which was a very trendy, up-to-the minute Italian store that had moved to New York. Everybody went there, and through him, I got a little concession,” she said.  And by “everybody,” She does mean everybody. Designer Marc Jacobs told the New York Times that instead of sleep-away camp during the summer, he would hang around the store, the very store where Jackie Onassis, Cher and Elizabeth Taylor all shopped. Madonna got her jewelry from one of the other concessions there, and the Fiorucci line is credited with inventing designer jeans.

“I had my little area in the store, and it was rockabilly, ‘50s Western kind of stuff,”  she said.  “At that time in New York, it was very novel and different.” It was in being different that the publicity came and success followed quickly.

For one, Katy K crinolines brought her attention from the likes of Cindy Lauper and Whitney Houston. Houston bought a crinoline and wore it in her 1987 Billboard Hot 100 chart topper, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

“I’ll never forget hers, because it was the craziest colors,” Kattelman said.  “It was like a black crinoline, and it had acid green and red ribbons on it. Whitney wore just the crinoline with no skirt on top and we sold them like that. Girls in the ‘80s – that was the style.”

Kattelman originally discovered crinolines while driving to Florida with her mother. They stopped in a square dance store in a small town and she came across the crinolines. Ever the entrepreneur, she contacted the name on the label to make them for her.

The clothing item was a success, but the success came with a hard lesson in business.

As Katy K put it, “All was well until the orders got too big to fill.”

When demand outstripped her ability to produce the clothing herself, she turned to a factory to produce her designs. “A business course would have helped, so it was a lot of kind of getting burned, but I made a name for myself, and I did meet a lot of wonderful people,” she said.

As notoriously vicious as the fashion industry is, Kattelman seems unaffected by it.

She moved on from Fiorucci later in the ‘80s, and stylists for Nashville music stars like Trisha Yearwood began to approach her.  “That’s when I started thinking that I would do good in Nashville.”

By 1994, Kattelman wanted to leave New York. “The times were weird, I had to get out,” she explained. One of her best friends had moved to Nashville and, having visited plus having professional ties to the city, she decided to give Music City a try and she stayed.

Kattelman moved into the 12 South location in 2000. She’s neighbors with Thomas Tours, the Hope Center, and a pack of apparently feral cats.

“She’s nuts about these cats,” said store manager Kara Simmons, who has worked at Katy K’s for the past four years. “She does everything but warm up their food for them and it’s just so cute.” Even on days when Kattelman is not at work, she makes sure to call in and check on the cats.

Simmons counts herself lucky to have found work with Kattelman. “We used to sell her vintage shirts and she was looking for a new manager. We just hit it off. She’s sweet,” Simmons said, drawing out the ee’s. “She’s so sweet.”

These days, Kattelman doesn’t do much designing. Specific fabrics that were readily available in New York are harder to come by in Nashville and costs don’t justify the process. Regardless, the store attracts an eclectic mix of people.

On one Friday afternoon, three teenage boys came looking for a colonel tie. On the more prominent end of the spectrum, Jack White and Paul Reubens, better known as Pee Wee Herman, stopped in.  “They came in together and Kara was so excited because Jack White came in, so she pushed the buzzer to warn me,” Kattelman said. “Then I go out and see it’s Pee Wee Herman with him. I’m usually very cool, but I kind of lost it.”

Kattelman is so even and calm, it’s hard to imagine. She said they usually don’t ask to take pictures with the notables who visit, but instead ask for a head shot. That day was no different.

And now on the wall between two of the rooms in the back hangs a glossy photo of Reubens. “To Katy K, your pal, Pee Wee Herman.”

While there may not be any marble involved, the newly styled Circle K features bright colors, a milk shake machine and a walk-in beer refrigerator.

Sophomore David Suell sees the Circle K’s former state as a part of the experience at Belmont.

“As with Waffle Houses, the sketchier the better, so hopefully, this new station will get seasoned quickly or the urban college atmosphere will be seriously at risk.”

Even before those projects go forward, today’s students are expressing concerns about the state of student facilities at Belmont. Namely, the issue is condensed to this question: As Belmont shoots toward an enrollment of 7,000 students, where will current students study, eat and sleep?

This past year, the Student Government Association worked with administration to extend the hour of the Beaman Student Life Center until 3 a.m. Outgoing SGA President D.J. King said he saw this as “hopefully a step towards getting a common location 24 hours for students.”

Bunch Library

The staff of the library, another popular study spot, said that despite the Beaman’s extended hours, students still express concern about a lack of late night study spaces, and safe ones at that.

Although the library offers extended hours from after mid-term through finals, junior Sukhbir Grewal said, “I think their biggest problem is they’re not open late enough.”

Reference librarian Rachel Scott said they’ve discussed the option of longer hours throughout the semester, but there are some obstacles.

“We’ve talked to a lot of different people about expanding library hours, including security,” she said, “and they don’t think they can keep this part of campus safe at night. They don’t have the personnel to do it.”

Scott also explained that it is not viable to keep the library open because they do not have the staff and budgets have been flat for a while.

“I do like the fact that there’s usually an open computer and it provides a quiet place to study without distractions,” Grewal said.

Two years ago, the library added study desks and opened up the layout to try and accommodate more group study areas.

“Probably the biggest concern is study space,” said Jenny Rushing, coordinator of Reference Services. The library has four study rooms for a student body of around 5500.

According to the records the library keeps, the 2008-2009 school year saw a 13 percent increase in study room usage. Traffic through the front door was at 89,348 for the same period, an 18 percent increase.

“We do need to expand to provide the services that we would like to and that a lot of Belmont students have expressed interest in,” Scott said.  “We don’t have a lot of the other services that a university library might offer like a copy center, media spaces, more computer labs.”

Recently the library conducted a survey to find out what students would like, things such as longer hours, free printing and a café, but feasibility is an issue. Free printing can lead to large amounts of wasted paper, and although Rushing said that a café would be at the top of everyone’s list, “with the current building that we have, we just don’t know where we would put it. We’re just trying to be very, very creative and work with what we have.”

The library itself was re-purposed from its original construction as a classroom building.  From the student perspective, junior Erin Cleary put it like this: “At college, the library should be the best building on campus.”

Student housing

Another point of concern for students is housing. Over the past three years Belmont built two new freshmen dorms and this year announced that Wright/Maddox—women’s and men’s dorms with a common lobby – will shift to housing upperclassmen.

In the housing crunch of the past few years, Wright hall was tripled for several years. In Maple Hall this academic year, on certain floors there were three women to a room.

Anthony Donovan, director of residence life, discussed the series of residential facilities built over the past 10 years that include Maple, as well as Kennedy Hall, Thrailkill Hall, and the second phase of the Hillside apartments.

Many students though, say they feel that campus housing could be better.

Hail Hall resident Aaron Espiritu said maintenance is an issue, from leaky pipes to spotty electricity.

Similarly, freshman Maple Hall resident Danielle Hollis appreciates that there are always people in the lobby of Maple Hall, but wasn’t thrilled about having two roommates. “It’s tough, it’s hard to just in there by yourself, there’s always someone else there. There’s not enough room to do that.”

“We’ve tried to build as our demand has occurred,” Donovan said, “and that can often make it tough from one year to the next.” The university has a certain ratio of students who live on campus. Donovan said that if the university wants to maintain that, more residence halls will probably have to be built.

“Everybody who needed housing – who is a current student of ours – we were able to provide them an opportunity for that,” he said with regard to the recent housing draw for fall.

As for keeping up facilities, Donovan said buildings are on a rotation for renovation and maintenance. He said that over the years students have taken better care of the facilities, so there has not been as much of a need to do major work.

“Each year we take a series of buildings in Hillside. We do roughly 12-20 apartments in Bruin Hills and the Commons. We do those with carpet and paint.” Donovan said.

Upkeep for residence facilities comes out of the university’s maintenance budget. “Students have to remember that there are lots of university priorities,” Donovan said. “Classroom buildings need attention, dining halls need attention, other facilities that the university has, have to compete with housing priorities as well.”

He noted that housing facilities probably get the most wear and tear, but other facilities cannot be neglected.

The Caf

When not in class, in the dorms, or studying, the cafeteria is a pretty good shot when it comes to places where students spend time.

Many students have mixed feelings on the cafeteria’s ability to provide food for everyone.  “It’s pretty good for what it is, for being caf food and all. I really eat the same thing everyday; a sandwich and pizza, it never lets you down. I like it,” said freshman Zach Witcher.

Others have a differing view about what the cafeteria provides for its students who rely heavily on eating there.

“The caf has leftovers almost every day.  They repeat a lot of the food they have on a weekly basis,” said freshman Jared Oban.  “It needs to start focusing on what students want.  I do think their mac and cheese is great, however.”

“I have one significant disappointment to report and that is related to our diversity goals,” Fisher said. “We have made what I would deem ‘acceptable progress’ in regard to the ethnic diversity of our staff (18 percent) and the ethnic and gender diversity of our Board of Trustees (36 percent). However, the ethnic diversity of our faculty seems to be stuck at about 5 percent and the percentage for our students actually declined last year from 13 percent to 10 percent.”

Seven months later, Fisher unveiled the Vision 2015 document, a five-year-plan for Belmont covering everything from enrollment goals and potential new building projects to turning Belmont into “Nashville’s university.”

The plan also touches on diversity among the faculty and students. Under the heading “Increase Diversity and Increase Cultural Competency” are three bullet points:

• Create a culture of inclusion;
• Actively and intentionally recruit diverse faculty, staff, board, and students;
• Ensure learning experiences that enable students to gain strong intercultural competency.

Over the past 10 years, Belmont has increased in diversity. According to the common set data from 2009-2010, there are more females than males, and the numbers of minorities on campus have risen from the neighborhood of 200 to close to 600. However, as Fisher said, though the numbers have doubled, so has Belmont’s enrollment. “It’s slow progress,” he said.

Diversity can include a wide range of categories, but Dean of Students Dr. Andrew Johnston says Belmont is identifying diversity in terms of race, ethnicity and gender specifically. As far as non-visible minorities, religious or economic, for example, Belmont does not have a plan to target these students, both Fisher and Johnston said.

“What we want to do is create an environment where everyone feels welcome,” Fisher said.

Meeting that goal has prompted Belmont to put a plan into place.

“It’s a big step to say, here’s what we’re doing strategically,” Johnston said. Belmont is working with Derek Young and his wife Allison on a program called “Welcome Home.” Young worked with Cracker Barrel after the restaurant chain found itself involved in issues with discrimination.

The program in part will cover making sure Belmont’s hiring practices are effective and focusing on certain high schools in the Nashville area that would “bring us a higher pool of minority students,” Fisher said. There is also a plan that will be formally introduced in the fall.

As far as where Fisher sees Belmont in the future, he draws on the current two classes enrolled in the school of pharmacy as examples.

“I say just walk into a classroom when they’re all there and look at them and you’d see what we’re trying to do, they’re from all over the world, they’re from all ethnic groups, it looks like the US of A, and the world together, it looks like the streets of New York City,” Fisher said. He also said he expects the law school to fill in similarly.

Part of what accounts for the make up of the pharmacy school is starting from scratch, as Fisher put it. For the rest of the student body, the process will be more gradual in terms of changing the ethnic and racial make up as well as changing attitudes about diversity.

On the admissions end, director of undergraduate admissions Anne Edmunds said that the admissions committee takes into account “the total picture.” In terms of diversity, “we also consider geographic diversity (all 50 states are represented on campus), academic program diversity (major), religion and classification (freshman/transfer/graduate student),” she said.

With regard to faculty, since 2000, Belmont has conducted hiring under an Affirmative Action Plan. In an October interview with director of human resources Sally McKay, she said that when an institution crosses a certain threshold in terms of the money it brings in, the government starts requiring an AAP to do things like keep federal grants.

When Belmont is looking to hire, the university tries to create an applicant pool that is representative  (or as representative as possible) of the available minorities based on statistics collected from the Department of Education and the U.S. census.

The challenge is filling that applicant pool.

“We proactively try to find ways of changing processes and the impact of those processes to reach better employment opportunities for those groups,” McKay said.

The 2008 AAP describes efforts taken to notify various groups that a position is open, saying that “the university… is utilizing online advertising venues including The Chronicle of Higher Education, HigherEdJob.com, InsideHigherEdJobs.com, the NCAA website, and the Black Coaches Association website.”

According to McKay though, filling out the applicant groups is an “imperfect science.” The numbers are based on “perfect world stats,” she said, meaning that the percentages “don’t always reflect that because the numbers are small.”

However, that is what McKay says the government is looking for in AAPs – a “good faith effort.”

McKay said that Belmont is always vulnerable to a random audit, but the government will not intervene unless there are complaints or anything that could be considered a lack of a “good faith effort.” To stay within that designation, practices are followed, applicants are treated equally and judgments are based on qualifications.

Fisher said he wants Belmont to be a place where people of all varieties feel welcome. Diversifying the faculty has been a struggle.

“I contend that if you can’t do that, you can’t really change, you can’t bring young people here to go to school and then look around and see who works here, what do they look like; there’s an unintended message there that we want to change,” he said. Apart from that, Fisher sees religious roots in the push for diversity.

He cited the story from the Gospel of John where the Pharisees asked Jesus what should be done with a woman who committed adultery. Jesus bent down and drew in the sand and when they continued to ask, he responded “let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Fisher likens what he’s doing to drawing in the sand.

“Jesus just opened his arms to people and loved them, cared for them, embraced them, he didn’t turn anyone away,” Fisher said.

Though, while the university might be open and in pursuit of diversity, all faculty at Belmont must be Christian.

“There is, at Belmont, sort of the big elephant in the room, which is, we hire Christian faculty,” Fisher said. “That’s Belmont, that’s part of who we are, and I try to make that clear to students before they get here.”

Similarly, Johnston said that changing and growing “does not mean that a place loses its identity.”

Fisher, who has worked at state schools in the past with plenty of non-Christian faculty, acknowledged that this might “complicate things a little,” and it does limit the international faculty Belmont can hire.

“That keeps us from being more diverse,” junior biology major Lindsey Dalton said, in response to learning about the Christian requirement.

Senior accounting major Jenna Davidson said that she wouldn’t mind having professors with different opinions. “If you let students who are non-Christians in, you should let faculty in,” she said.

“It is an issue that we have to be alert to, but beyond that, beyond the national implications of the predominance of different religions of most countries, we’re open to anyone who’s Christian,” Fisher said.

For anyone not on Twitter, you’re not missing much and yet at the same time you’re missing a lot. It’s a weird place where friends, celebrities, media outlets, musicians, businesses—essentially any user you want to bring into your world—digitally congregate on a page that you control. It’s your own strange little news feed.

And the messages you tweet? Everything from biting witticisms to painfully useless information and displays of egocentrism and boredom.

Here’s an example of one of my finer moments on Twitter: 11:51 p.m. December 12:

“I can only watch Fight Club so many times.”

This was, perhaps, not the best use of my linguistic ability or my potential for information dispersal, especially as a journalist.

Twitter is loaded with fluff like that. Sure, the site can be entertaining and even fun, but on the whole, it begs the question, is this really what we want our “snapshot” of history to be?

These days people are constantly producing content. We blog, we microblog, we make videos to post on YouTube, we become our own brands and platforms for media delivery. We are constantly creating, but when someone threatens to preserve all that creation for posterity, it should prompt us to look at what we create. Shot for shot remakes of Lady Gaga music videos? Digital timelines of incredibly mundane activities? Documentations of self-indulgence?

NBC recently aired a two hour-long look back on the first decade of “Saturday Night Live” in the new millennium. They talked about the explosion of viral video. Justin Timberlake spoke with an outright reverence about one particular SNL Digital Short he made with Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island crew, how nobody had any idea that “D*** in a Box” was going to take off the way it did. Can we get a moment of silence here?

This is no high art.

Arguably not every splotch of paint that found its way onto a canvas 200 years ago, also found its way into the Louvre, but I think the aspirations were different. I don’t think that any given bored college kid who makes a video is aiming at immortality. They’re aiming at the quick and funny, another 13-year-old wiping out on his skateboard or a cat who does something.

Advancements in technology have brought the equipment, the software and the delivery platform right into the lap of the average person. It’s so easy that no one has to consider saving resources for something really worthwhile.

How do we want to be remembered? The Internet is exempt from the plundering of rival tribes and the sinking of cities. The Internet will not get chipped and buried in soil. The things we produce will be out there for a long time.

The flip side to all this is that maybe this was the generation that totally changed communication, that gave the world a place to meet. Part of me would like to see the next generation realize that we had our cool moments, we had a sense of humor. When political absurdity threatened to swallow us, we fired back declaring we could see Russia from our houses. And T-Pain sang along. If no one has introduced you to The Gregory Brothers’ “Auto-Tune the News” series, search it on YouTube the first chance you get.

There’s no definitive answer. Probably the worst thing to do is get sour about everything. There’s certainly an argument for unbridled creativity. Let’s throw the spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. Google was invented in a garage, after all.

Perhaps though, maybe the next time you’re about to Tweet about a ham sandwich, remember it’ll be in the Library of Congress. Forever.

This week: Senator John Thune pays a visit to campus, the library gets its own week and Correspondent Cassidy Hodges has a showdown with Dr. Fisher. Trust us, you’ll want to check it out.

On Tuesday, April 13th, students can log on to Blackboard to vote on whether the constitution should be adopted.

Changes  include:

• Limiting the number of congress members to 40 at large
• Limiting the percentage of congress members from the same organization
• Consolidating committees
• Streamlining the document itself from 18 to 7 pages

According to SGA Vice President Eric S. Deems, “this constitution will enable SGA to more efficiently work on our campus.”

Both the SGA congress and Student Affairs unanimously passed the reform, so all that remains is the student vote.