The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

DE ignores Faith Week

I would like to send a big thank you and congratulations out to all the people who put time, energy and effort into making the first ever Faith Week a success. There were many people that worked hard to make this event truly multi-faith. It could have been easy to "forget" the smaller and less known or less popular religions that are represented by students and registered student organizations on this campus, but instead the organizers chose the more difficult road and welcomed in the great diversity of faith we have here at SIUC.

This was a major event for this campus, and yet the DAILY EGYPTIAN had one brief and general article in the very beginning of the week. One article. Where were you for the RSO fairs? Where were you at the Issues Forum Tuesday night that drew over 100 people and had Pagan, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and others sitting at the same tables? Where was the coverage for the nightly spiritual movie discussions? Where were your reporters and photographers for the many individual events held every day? And where were you for the final event of the week, a free progressive dinner sponsored by UCM which had the participation of Christian, Muslim, and Pagan faiths eating together in harmony? Where were you, our university paper?

Perhaps an innovative and collective effort that drew people together rather than emphasizing the differences that keep us apart wasn't exciting enough news here on campus. After all, there were no protests or hate words thrown around. Rather, there was respect and a sense of unity and of learning from each other even when differences were apparent.

Perhaps there were not enough press releases sent out, yet you had all the basics in that one article that managed to be included in the paper, so someone knew something was happening. I know I personally called the newsroom and practically begged the DAILY EGYPTIAN to attend the Progressive Dinner, but no one showed.

I am truly disappointed and frustrated with the University media in regard to this event. So many people worked to make this first ever Campus Faith Week happen and happen in a positive and successful way, yet when I would mention it to various people their response more often than not was "Faith Week? What's that?"

As our campus paper I feel that you could have been an incredible source of support and promotion for this very unique and progressive event. A great opportunity was missed by you and by the campus community to be an even larger part of this event, and that is really very sad.

Perhaps next year we will all do better, which will just make Faith Week 2005 and even more amazing event since even with little media coverage, this year's event was a success and simply a blast! I am proud and honored to have been involved.

Tara Nelsen
graduate student, health education

[Macro error: Can't include because the file is larger than 32767 characters.]

Today's News | Sports | Voices - Editorial | Letters
Newsbriefs | pulse - Arts & Entertainment | Calendar | Photo Staff
Apts & Rentals | Photo Personals | Live DE NewsCam | Classified Ads