By Corwin D. Smidt

Staff Writer

Last week's Chimes had an interesting mix of articles that I thought were all quite ironic, especially when paired with that delightful Student News e-mail we got last week. Let us examine what was mentioned: One, the Calvin administration is concerned about alcohol and how it affects our community. Two, the administration thought that prank last week was an outright blow to our community on campus. Three, Chimes writes an article and editorial about the Student Senate town hall meetings, and, big surprise, no one showed up because we have no community. Four, and this is the kicker, Calvin receives a $400,000 grant to get involved with the community. Does anyone else find this interesting? Calvin talks about actions that harm our community, Chimes says we have no community, and it turns out the government is giving us money to develop community. Perhaps there needs to be a re-examination on all of our parts as to what the current state of Calvin's community is before we go off and spend $400,000 to develop it.

A community is not a simple thing to classify. Yes, there are certain definitions that suffice in some circumstances, but when we are talking about the Calvin community it cannot be just one community. An infinite amount of social, educational, business and informal communities exist in and around the campus. I think last week's editorial was right to point out the sorry state of our community as shown at the recent town hall meetings. However, is this the case at Hope-Calvin basketball games? Obviously not. In discussing the concept of a Calvin community, it should be recognized that it refers to not one, but a collection of communities.

Therefore, while one community may exist here in a latent condition, others are continuously thriving. There are numerous communities of individuals who go to class, go to chapel, play intramurals, participate in clubs and even go to parties. These different communities are good things to have; otherwise we would just be one homogeneous blob of a student body. Our communities co-exist peacefully with all of us participating differently in different ones. It is out of this peaceful co-existence and general trust that a greater feeling of a Calvin community develops.

So far this has sounded all nice and bubbly; it has been a grand celebration of peaceful diversity. But here comes the meat of my point. These pranks that supposedly harmed our community by violating our trust did no such thing. In fact, these pranks reflect a positive state of Calvin's community. For example, what type of person does one play a joke on? The answer is simple: one that is a good friend. Jokes reflect a general sense of trust between those who commit it and those on whom they are played. Those who did this prank obviously trust this community. Feeling they can perform such an act reflects a sense of comfort with the authorities that getting caught never felt so scary.

This also relates to the supposed bad state of our community seen at the town hall meeting. The purpose of such a meeting was to address problems that exist in our community. But are there any serious problems on our campus? I think things are running quite smoothly. Everybody is getting along with the college and all the communities are operating well. A poor attendance at such a meeting can actually reflect a positive state of community.

Sure, there might be problems that exist on campus, but we have networks and organizations to deal with them. The Student Senate elections may not have high voter turnout but I know some of the senators and can safely say they do a good job in representing student concerns. We also have organizations like the Environmental Stewarship Coalition and Social Justice Committee which are active and engage the students and administration in areas that need to be addressed. This might be an optimistic perspective. Maybe we need more of these organizations and activities, but I fail to see existing or future problems that are not being, or will not be, addressed in order for this college to operate.

I did see a problem in our community with a couple of the actions and statements that occured the past week. But the second e-mail that came out after a meeting with Student Senate seemed to be on a much more positive note. There might have been a little tension or breach of trust in the student-administration relationship, but a little communication and interaction between the different ``communities'' seemed to patch that up.

This is not to say that the pranks were in the line of a proper prank; maybe the esteemed Moses award committee should judge that. If the Calvin Cats do get caught, they should pay a little for what harm they might have done. That's always been a part of pulling a prank and perhaps they were already prepared to do so. And if they don't get caught on this one, they might get caught on their next prank of stealing all the bathroom toilet seats. Oh, but that's been done before, by a former Calvin student (and later Calvin president) named Anthony Diekema.