The excess of Homecoming

I am appalled at the wasteful extravagance that IUSA indulged in when planning this year’s Homecoming Week. \nFirst of all, an IUSA member spoke of the bonfire at last Wednesday’s cornhole tournament in which students were encouraged to bring a shirt from another school to burn, and then receive an IU shirt in return. Wouldn’t it have been a lot less wasteful to perhaps donate the shirts to the homeless shelter rather than burn them? Burning stuff pollutes the environment, too. \nNext on my list of qualms is that this entire weekend there was a giant IUSA billboard-on-wheels driving in circles around town. Again, really wasteful. Oil is scarce my friends. \nThirdly, on Friday night, there were fireworks being set off ... at 7 p.m. when it was still light out. Pointless again. \nLastly, there was an entire extra section of the IDS on Friday dedicated to all of the great events going on for Homecoming Weekend ... you know what’s coming: waste of paper. I bring this up because I am an IU student who cares about practicality and I find it rather repulsive that IUSA, an organization representing me and all the other IU students, is taking such careless actions to put on a flashy weekend. It was a really close-minded operation, not thinking at all about the bigger picture and being resourceful or creative rather than wasteful and excessive. I hope IUSA takes this issue into consideration when planning events in the future.