1: Engagement with University and state politics. Youth turnout for November’s midterm elections was low for multiple reasons, but among them was the belief that voting can do little good. They were correct in one sense, but only because voting is most effective as the culmination of longer-term political awareness and legwork that prefigures the choices voters face on election day.
2: More forthright communication strategies from the University. UNC’s public relations platoon should prioritize communicating clear and timely information to students, even if this means facing up to embarrassing facts in the short run.
3: Forceful efforts to address poverty in Chapel Hill and North Carolina. The death of Jason Myrick, a man whose address at the time of his death was listed as the Rosemary Street shelter, reminded us that poverty persists, sometimes quite literally, in wealth’s back yard.
4: Beefed-up commitments to invest in renewable energy and sustainable food provision. Long-term problems require long-term solutions, but they also require incremental progress for those solutions to be realized. UNC’s stalled commitment to become coal-free by 2020 could use a few of those small victories to get back on track.
5: Stronger issue-based leadership from student government. A new student body president will be elected in February, meaning that strong stances on race, sexual assault and other thorny issues thus far avoided by the administration will have to be taken soon. We’d love to see more vocal leadership of efforts to save UNC’s centers and institutes and more forceful language with respect to the need for an overhaul of the staff tasked with handling sexual assault.
6: Confrontation of alcohol abuse at UNC. In addition to the part it plays in rape culture, binge-drinking can obscure mental health problems that go underaddressed on college campuses.
7: Scaled-up efforts to make the area safer for pedestrians and cyclists. The 2014 introduction of new bike lanes and helpful signs for pedestrians downtown was marred by several pedestrian and cyclist casualties. The urbanization heralded by the town’s newly soaring skyline must include modern development strategies that ensure growth won’t be constricted by dependence on private automobiles or the threat they pose to foot and cycle traffic.
