why does utsa have no school spirtit? football team is an obvious one, as they said. but that isn't all. many schools with no football (gonzaga, william & mary, case western, seton hall, university of chicago, uc san diego) have plenty more "School spirit". other differences:
1. time - utsa will never, no matter how much time passes, be as old as yale,
columbia, or even young schools like a&m or ut austin. can't catch up in time. a pemanent obstacle.
2. location - the campus is too far from the city. this makes it hard for non-students to connect with events (like they do when the spurs win a championship). nearly every "patriotic" school is right in the middle of the city or small town.
3. housing - students don't live on campus. only a handful, really. so there is not a core of fans who are saturated in utsa life 24 hours a day. any "spirit" schools has a huge number of on campus students, faces with spirit building activities multiple times a day, every day. things as simple as receiving a letter (with campus address) or eating dinner (in campus dining hall) become reinforcement of school identity. many schools require freshmen (with few exceptions) to live in dorms.
4. alumni - there just aren't many interested alumni. this is related to time, but it is possible, eventually, to catch up (old people die). at ohio state (my undergrad) the alumni participate in EVERYTHING - not just football. a music recital, end-of-course research presentation, and student government events always draw interested alumni. this is also related to the location, because less non-students live nearby. there are not yet many multi-generational roadrunners. going to your parent's schools more than doubles the school spirit, i think.
5. diluted attention - most don't know this. but there are more university students in san antonio than austin. the difference is san antonio's 58000 students are split between a bunch of schools (approximately: utsa 22000, st marys 13000, trinity 10000, oll 7000, uiw 6000). so resources, news, alumni, and community interaction are all split. in austin, all college news or events are for the same huge school.
possible solutions:
1. location - move the school downtown. or at least, stop building so much in the north, keep building lots downtown.
2. housing - build more housing. close enough to walk to class , actually ON the campus. not beside it. this will require things like a small grocery, gas station, coffee house, dollar store, video store. realyl a huge real estate development.
3. focus attention - this will require more funding, emphasis on program strengths, involvement in more community organizations, even initiative with a few of the other universities. more classes offered downtown will steal students from oll and uiw.
4. rivalry - the sports teams always play schools like luisiana lafayette or arkansas or something. students need an immediate, notable rivalry. against local universities. and ut austin.
but who needs school spirit anyway? will it make my life better?
1. time - utsa will never, no matter how much time passes, be as old as yale,
columbia, or even young schools like a&m or ut austin. can't catch up in time. a pemanent obstacle.
2. location - the campus is too far from the city. this makes it hard for non-students to connect with events (like they do when the spurs win a championship). nearly every "patriotic" school is right in the middle of the city or small town.
3. housing - students don't live on campus. only a handful, really. so there is not a core of fans who are saturated in utsa life 24 hours a day. any "spirit" schools has a huge number of on campus students, faces with spirit building activities multiple times a day, every day. things as simple as receiving a letter (with campus address) or eating dinner (in campus dining hall) become reinforcement of school identity. many schools require freshmen (with few exceptions) to live in dorms.
4. alumni - there just aren't many interested alumni. this is related to time, but it is possible, eventually, to catch up (old people die). at ohio state (my undergrad) the alumni participate in EVERYTHING - not just football. a music recital, end-of-course research presentation, and student government events always draw interested alumni. this is also related to the location, because less non-students live nearby. there are not yet many multi-generational roadrunners. going to your parent's schools more than doubles the school spirit, i think.
5. diluted attention - most don't know this. but there are more university students in san antonio than austin. the difference is san antonio's 58000 students are split between a bunch of schools (approximately: utsa 22000, st marys 13000, trinity 10000, oll 7000, uiw 6000). so resources, news, alumni, and community interaction are all split. in austin, all college news or events are for the same huge school.
possible solutions:
1. location - move the school downtown. or at least, stop building so much in the north, keep building lots downtown.
2. housing - build more housing. close enough to walk to class , actually ON the campus. not beside it. this will require things like a small grocery, gas station, coffee house, dollar store, video store. realyl a huge real estate development.
3. focus attention - this will require more funding, emphasis on program strengths, involvement in more community organizations, even initiative with a few of the other universities. more classes offered downtown will steal students from oll and uiw.
4. rivalry - the sports teams always play schools like luisiana lafayette or arkansas or something. students need an immediate, notable rivalry. against local universities. and ut austin.
but who needs school spirit anyway? will it make my life better?
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