There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions—that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited. – Aristotle, Rhetoric

First Call has changed throughout my four years at Penn, from the face-lift it received in 2002 to ongoing changes in the writing staff.  The opinions expressed in a college opinion magazine change as students graduate and new ones matriculate.  First Call does provide an opportunity that I wish more students would take part in: free expression. 

The first rule: have a point.  The second: make that point.  It’s really rather simple.  It’s fine to ramble, to reminisce, and to share anecdotes.  No matter how you frame or style your argument, you need to make a point.  The point… that’s what an opinion is.  Persuasion is how you express that opinion.  In this final article, I will relate the story of how I first encountered First Call, and why the existence of an open forum for the free expression of ideas and opinions is vitally important in modern times.

My prospective freshman overnight experience on April 8^th and April 9^th, 2002 was a great experience because I got to legitimately skip high school, and I had a blast with my hosts and at the classes and events I attended.  I decided I would be spending the next four years of my academic career in West Philadelphia.  Those two days also introduced me to First Call, one of the defining aspects of my college life—I began freshman year as a writer, moved up to columnist, joined the editorial staff, and eventually became Editor-in-Chief.

First Call, the Undergraduate Commentary—the subtitle has since been changed to “The Weekly Undergraduate Magazine”—was an unassuming eight-pager sitting on a table in Houston Hall.  I’d heard about the Daily Pennsylvanian.  Everyone researching Penn has.  I’d had some experience with school papers.  The Tower, Princeton High School’s monthly student newspaper, had constantly rejected my freelance opinion pieces because they weren’t assigned and they weren’t “news”.  I didn’t want to be a beat reporter, so apparently journalism wasn’t up my alley.  I imagined the DP would be much of the same, and I wasn’t very impressed after flipping through its pages.  It just seemed so pedestrian.  I had just heard two students debating about King Lear in Wynn Commons (it was then known to me as “that courtyard with the big, round stairs”).  Where was the intelligent thought? The biting social satire? The whole idea of argumentation?  Where were the opinions of the 10,000 undergraduate students who had enrolled in this ever-increasingly prestigious university?  What are they interested in, what issues push their buttons, what’s going on in their minds?  Certainly the ten official columnists who write for the DP on a weekly basis couldn’t cover the breadth of opinion on campus.  And, no, they don’t.

So, I picked up First Call.  I’ll admit that it wasn’t because the paper was particularly attractive or eye-catching; it was because Ryan Fagan had written an article on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, pop culture, and feminism.  I was and am still obsessed with the show.  More importantly, though, the article was similar to a piece that I had written for The Tower, and had been immediately rejected as “not news”.  The Tower had instead chosen to publish a full-page spread on the best popcorn to be found in Princeton, NJ.  Imagine the chuckle-fest I had upon finding similar material in 34^th Street.

I perused the rest of First Call and found the content to be extremely varied in topics, eloquent, and well-argued.  I thought, “This is what college students are thinking about.”  It was a roadmap to Penn’s zeitgeist, whether it was a discussion of business practices, an anonymous sex column, a pro/con argument about a political issue, or a satirical fiction story about Judith Rodin.  It was exactly what I was looking for.  Even better, writers were screened not by application, but by the quality of writing and of the argument being made.  I wanted to become involved, and I joined in September.

As it turns out, I wasn’t wrong in my initial estimation about what Penn students were thinking.  I was just wrong about the willingness of people to express their thoughts.  In truth, the average student at the University of Pennsylvania doesn’t openly care about much of anything.  There is an alarming amount of seeming apathy at this school.  Apathy is cool.  It isn’t just at Penn, of course, but this is our microcosm.  When the war in Iraq began, I joined the protest rally and did an overnight Houston Hall sit-in, in lieu of studying for a COMM 130 midterm.  Maybe a couple of hundred people—on both sides of the argument—took to the streets to make their voices heard.

I knew this wasn’t what was going on in people’s minds.  I had countless conversations with people about the war, or about whatever the issue du jour was (gay marriage, abortion, student government elections controversies, etc).  But no one was talking about it openly or doing anything.  It was okay to have an opinion in closed quarters, in a small circle of friends—who, more likely than not, share the same opinion—after all, that’s how tend to we organize our social networks.  In 2006, many people blog.  The people who read opinions on a blog are probably those who seek validation of their own opinions and occasionally want to flame someone else’s opinion, not people looking to have their views challenged or to be persuaded otherwise.

In short, we have become very comfortable with preaching to the choir and very uncomfortable with the idea of true persuasion.  We live in a world of spin, in a comfort zone.  I recently heard Pink’s song “Dear Mr. President”.  The song exhibits this very idea.  Pink and her father agreed not to speak about politics because of their highly conflicting views—she is strongly anti-Bush—until she played him this song, off of her upcoming album called I’m Not Dead.  He reportedly told her that she might have been right about Bush.  I think everyone should listen to the song, no matter your thoughts on Bush—in fact, I challenge those conservatives reading this to listen to it.  I wonder what effect it will have.

I love “Dear Mr. President”, but I love the story more.  It’s the very core of what First Call at its best can do: persuade.  You won’t find that in news reporting.  It’s called reporting because it is supposed to be about objective fact.  Opinions aren’t planned; you shouldn’t be forced to apply to be a weekly columnist in order to express the ire, frustration, satisfaction, or whatever you may be feeling about any particular subject matter at any particular time. 

If I can leave any mark at Penn, I would choose this: put yourself out there.  Never stop honestly expressing your opinions.  Express yourself to people who aren’t comfortable with your point of view.  Have an argument.  Have a discussion.  See an issue in someone else’s shoes before judging, before condemning, and before ignoring.  Never take information at face value, always question.  Craft your own opinion before being told someone else’s, and for the love of God, don’t agree just to appear amenable or to win friends.

First Call is a fantastic forum for the expression of your opinions.  You have them.  I challenge you to take this fabulous opportunity to express them.  It doesn’t really exist outside of college unless you go on to become an opinion writer for, say, the New Yorker.  Without First Call, Penn would just have popcorn ratings. 

I would like to thank First Call for being my forum over the last four years.  I do not expect that First Call will feature opinions about television in the near future. Television may not be the weightiest of topics, but I strongly believe that pop culture is one of the strongest influences on our lives, and television remains a huge part of that.  Thank you to my readers, who have been proactive enough to contact me with television suggestions, or with thank you notes for recommending something they would never have known about otherwise, much less watched and enjoyed (most recently Arrested Development and Veronica Mars).

So, for the last time… happy tubing.